Stockholm New York, The Altman Building, Chelsea, Manhattan, May 2000

After the heavy and full-scale enough preludes in Milan and Tokyo, of course we felt that the time had come for New York, this notorious ***** of a city which served as something of our personal evil empire, throughout the decade during which we worked with our magazine, and long before that, in the pre-9/11 era when the great American metropolis was still unchallenged in its position as the modern western world's equivalent of ancient Rome. In Milan and Tokyo, we had co-hosted the events with several other players, but when the time had come to take on New York, where we also produced large parts of our magazine - parts that grew in proportion for each new issue, as we escaleted on the fashion latter in terms of star quality of photographers and models, scale of productions, etcetera - we wanted to be in control ourselves, orchestrating the event in every detail without too much intervention from others and of course also take all the risque and tremendous pressure that this insane spectacle brought with it ourselves. The name of the event came naturally — the name of our magazine with the small word York added as a post-fix at the end. It was a very good name, and as usual with such, it has since been "borrowed" by others...

Well, said and done, with Claes Britton as production leader and Jens Grede, now a fashion agency leader, as his assistant, we unleashed this monster in a production period of a full year. How the hell we were able to pull it off with our minimal crew is still a mystery, but our operations at the time ran on top rev on all cylinders after having executed a great streak of events of constantly escalating format all around the world.

So we rented The Altman Building event space of some 1,600 square meter in street level and basement on 18th Street in the heart of Chelsea, Manhattan. Here we built a design exhibition curated by Thomas Sandell, and a restaurant in the street level. In the basement, on of our key sponsors, SAS, built a lounge and a bar. Another sponsor, Hasselblad, provided an 11-meter film screen in front of which we built a catwalk where we staged a fashion show with six Swedish designers shown by some fifty models, from New York and flown over from Stockholm, parading in front of six short films directed exclusively by Jonas Åkerlund and projected from behind the screen, with Swedish songs as soundtracks - quite hard rock'n'roll tunes by bands the likes of Lädernunnan, Hellacopters and Teddybears. The event lasted for a total of just fortyeight hours, after a more intimate housewarming party for some five hundred participants and friends, after construction had been underway since early morning and would go on throughout the night, executed by a team of twentyfive carpenters, electricians and technicians from the famous Kadan Productions production company, in addition to the teams of the various participants and exhibitors. From early morning to late evening, the curb outside The Altman Building was lined with U-Haul trucks unloading cargo from ships and planes from Sweden.

For PR, we were assisted by the then still recently founded Patriksson Communication PR agency in Stockholm, and by Pierre Rougier and his PR Consulting in New York, who also did the PR for the huge-scale launch of the then recently opened first H&M shop in America, the great flagship on Fifth Avenue. Together with AGoodID we also produced the campaign website stockholmnewyork.com, on which we streamed live from the event - cutting edge back in 2000, when the web was just an embroy of what it has become today.

Over these fortyeight hours, we offered our guest, among other things, a design seminar, a lunch for design media served by our friends at Sturehof (who had flown over with a team of some twenty chefs, kitchen hands and waiters), a gourmet lunch for the gastronomic media served by Sturehof in collaboration with Aquavit in New York, the above mentioned fashion show and fashion party for some nine hundred specially invited fashion guests on the first evening of the event, where the electronic dance duo KOOP performed live and then deejayed, several other seminars and events hosted by the various participants, concluded with the magificent grand finale - the great party for some fifteen hundred invitees, where the monumental Absolut bar was built and lit up like an altar at the base of the premises, with huge trays of oysters, whitefish roe and other delicassies sperad out around the great ballroom. Neither Obelix nor Pantagruel could have had anything more to ask for that night. As a climax, Titiyo performed her hit song Come Along live for the first time, followed by Stephen Simmons and deejaying by KOOP. It all ended in exctacy, with the crowd screaming for "just one more song" after the boys had finished.

Oh Lord, how we even survived this ordeal — it is indeed a mystery. We had our entire creative Stockholm family built up through our lifetimes and professional careers with us. Behind us as sponsors were all of Sweden's most powerful global brands, with few exceptions, as well as all relevant official authorities and organisations. All in all, we were approximately three-four hundred who crossed the Atlantic from Stockholm for the event. Stockholm New York was a success of a calibre which is impossible to measure. We created an event with a holistic atmosphere of such quality and magnitude that it is doubtful if we could have improved it even in the slightest. One of our concepts was that the boundries between exhibited objects and the generously flowing streams of give-aways from our sponsors were blurry. Cleptomania soared among the guests and the ambiance of the events repeatedly reached into the borderlines between euphoria and riot where we like to operate - freeflowing rock'n'roll, love, joy and glamour with no strings attached.

The fact that our event would eventually be backtalked in some political circles, in the wake of a media scandal in South Africa now forgotten, for reasons incomprehensible to us — well this was indeed sad but by no means surprising to us. Our entire journey with Stockholm New was swarmed by endless controversy, as in the case of many initiatives that break new ground and move through un-chartered land.

During the Stockholm New York event, we also launched Stockholm New No.9 — the Stockholm New York issue.

Credits:

Stockholm New York, The Altman Building, Chelsea Manhattan, maj 2000

A Stockholm New Event

Produktion partners: Swecode (Asplund, Box Design, cbi och David Design), Sturehof, Diesel Music/Superstudio, RMR Interactive (now AGoodID), Patriksson Communication, PR Consulting, Totem Design, Aquavit, Stockholm Design Lab, Ytterborn&Fuentes

Sponsors: Absolut, SAS, Volvo, H&M, IKEA, Orrefors Kosta Boda, Hasselblad, Marimekko, Stockholms Auktionsverk, Grand Hotel, Berns, Eton Shirts, J.Lindeberg, Kraft Freia Marabou (Daim), The Swedish Foreign Ministry, The Swedish Tourist Council, Stockholm Information Service. The Swedish Consulate New York

Fashion: Ellegal/Illegal, Whyred, Pia Wallén, Anna Holtblad, Lovisa Burfitt, J.Lindeberg

Design curator: Thomas Sandell

Gastronomy: Restaurang Sturehof, Stockholm and Aquavit, New York

Music: Titiyo, Stephen Simmons, KOOP

Now

Groundbreaking exhibition at Färgfabriken in Stockholm in 2000, co-produced by Färgfabriken and Stockholm New. Selected works by 17 young fashion photographes from around the world in the arty, edgy segment of the market were presented, all on the verge of braking through in the global arena. Most of them then eventually went on to become major stars. The catalogue was designed by Henrik Nygren. The selection of photographers and works was curated in cooperation with participating photographer André Wolff. The partcipating photographers were Ola Bergengren, Anouschka Blommers & Niels Schumm, Cedric Bucket, Anders Edström, Lee Jenkins, Jean-Pierre Khazem, Michelle Mallard, Guido Mocafico, Phil Poynter, Jeff Reidel, Stefan Ruiz, Maurice Sheltens, Norbert Shoerner, Sølve Sundsø, Paul Wetherell and André Wolff. The criteria for the selection of images was that they should all have been published in a fashion magazine — publictions such as i-D, The Face, Jalouse, Bibel, Studio Voice, Dazed & Confused, Purple Fashion, Vogue Hommes International, Spin, Flaunt, Jalouse and Stockholm New 

Swedish Style in Tokyo, 1999

Legendary ten-day lifestyle extravaganza in our favorite among the the global metropolises, staged at the Swedish Embassy and in a number of galleries, shops, clubs and other venues around Tokyo. Hosted by Ambassadrise Ewa Kumlin (now president of Svensk Form), in collaboration with Stockholm New. The event, which presented a generous selection of contemporary Swedish art, photography, fashion, music and gastronomy, attracted major global attention and became trendsetting in official international promotion of the "Sweden image". Among the participants/exhibitors were fashion designers/brands Filippa k, Lovisa Burfitt, Whyred, Nygårds Anna and Pia Wallén, photographers Frederik Lieberath, Martina Hoogland, John Scarisbrick, André Wolff, Anders Edström and Mikael Jansson, artists Maria Misenberger and Carl-Michael von Hausswolff, curators Jan Åman och Thomas Nordanstad, chef Christer Lingström, musicians Olle Ljungström, Dilba and Martin, and the then recently founded PR agency Patriksson Communication.

Alas, the array of attractions was similar to that unbeatable mix which we had launched with Living in Sweden in Milan and which we would bring to its edge with Stockholm New York — fashion, design, food & drink, music and of course ungodly amounts of partying — and which was later to be copied endlessly. Fundamentally it was, as mentioned below, built on the trendsetting editorial content mix of Stockholm New, minus the nature. The events can thus be said to have been a kind of "live versions" of the magazine.

Swedish Style in Tokyo II, 2001

Two-week lifestyle event which had now grown to monster format with some two hundred fifty participants flown over from Stockholm, with Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden as our figurhead. Here, we presented no less than three exhibitions with Stockholm New — Rest at this well, with photographs by Mikael Jansson and art glass by Ingegerd Råman, That's some fine young feminine form!, with objects by four young female product designers (Monica Förster, Sanna Hansson, Anki Gneib and Anna von Schewen), and Images of Sweden, with classic Stockholm New images. At the event, we also launched our famous Stockholm New No.11 — the Tokyo issue.

Why don't we dare to be modern?

In 1998, we hosted the great debate Why don't we dare to be modern? with Stockholm New, commissioned by the Interest Committee For a Design Museum in Stockholm, staged at the committee's temporary premises named Forum för Form, housed in an old shipyard workshop i Skeppsholmen island in central Stockholm. The subject for the debate the fear of daring, modern and experimental expressions in contemporary Swedish architecture and city planning, and the general architectonic paralyzation in contemporary Swedish construction. The question that we posed was how it could be that not a single building of international significance has been constructed in Stockholm since Peter Celsing's Kulturhuset (House of Culture) in Sergels torg, completed in 1971. Our thesis was that the cause of this paralyzation was to be found in the trauma that had followed the crimes committed by politicians and builders during so called "record years" and the "city regulation" in Stockholm in the sixties and seventies. The debate panel was manned by Claes Britton, Thomas Sandell, Gert Wingårdh and Ola Andersson, among others. The packed audiience in the magnificent auditorium — which we had decorated with monumental banners with classic Stockholm New images — included the cream of Swedish architects, architecture and design journalists, construction moguls, city planners and political representatives,.

This debate became highly influential and succeeded to establish a problem complex in Swedish architecture and construction which had previously not been formulated. A few months later, our panel was invited by the late municipal plan architect in Stockholm, Jan Inghe, to elaborate our criticism in front of a group of leading city planners and construction executives in the Stockholm Office for City Planning's temporary headquarters in Hammarby Sjöstad, the visionary new city district then under construction. History was to prove us right in every aspect of our then new critisism. The problem complex that we formulated is now considered common knowledge.

Unfortunately photographic documentation from the debate seems to be lacking.