Style, comfort and quality in every detail. It is the philosophy that has made Stenströms to be one of Sweden's best-known brands. The classic Stenströms shirt carries 120 years of tradition, professionalism and quality. Today, the business concept also includes women's blouses, knitwear, accessories, boxers and ties.
In this episode Peter speaks to both Marie Ramberg, Head of Marketing and Peter Juriado, Head of Design at Stenströms about the brand's classic and contemporary collections, as well as the brand's rich heritage which includes first making shirts for ship captains in Helsingborg in 1883.
Whilst we have your attention, be sure to sign up to our daily MenswearStyle newsletter here. We promise to only send you the good stuff.
Style, comfort and quality in every detail. It is the philosophy that has made Stenströms to be one of Sweden's best-known brands. The classic Stenströms shirt carries 120 years of tradition, professionalism and quality. Today, the business concept also includes women's blouses, knitwear, accessories, boxers and ties.
In this episode Peter speaks to both Marie Ramberg, Head of Marketing and Peter Juriado, Head of Design at Stenströms about the brand's classic and contemporary collections, as well as the brand's rich heritage which includes first making shirts for ship captains in Helsingborg in 1883.
Whilst we have your attention, be sure to sign up to our daily MenswearStyle newsletter here. We promise to only send you the good stuff.
Hello, welcome to another episode of the mentor style podcast. I'm your host Pete Brooker and on this episode we'll be talking to the head of design for Stenstrom is Pt raido and the head of marketing Marie ramberg. Stenstrom is internationally renowned for its pristine quality using only the best fabrics and trims, they craft classic and contemporary clothing. Last year they celebrated their 100 and 20th year in business with timelessness and design at its heart Stenstrom showcases heritage and craftsmanship as well as innovation, incorporating organic linen, cotton, tensile and Jacquard woven fabrics with classic cuts, providing durable garments, which stand the test of time. By the way, you can check the collections out for yourself@stenstrom.com we'll get to that interview shortly. But before that, let me tell you about the website menswear style.co.uk Click the Member Area button on the top right of the homepage and you'll be taken to our discounts and loyalty section. This is where you'll see exclusive discounts and privileges from hundreds of your high street brands within fashion, lifestyle, beauty and more. We currently have 20% of that new balance 15% of it Hawes and Curtis 10% of a tm Lewin 50% of a cornerstone we've just added some more 15% of our pasta 20% of pursue fitness and 35% of my protein it's all over their menswear. style.co.uk the Member Area button top right of the page. You can use these discounts both online and in store helping you to save over 2000 pounds per year. While all right. Lastly, if you're on the social type in menswear style into your smartphone and will come up almost everywhere. If you'd like to get in touch with the show or become a guest and talk about your brand and its journey then email us at info at menswear. style.co.uk Okay, here is that interview with Pt raido and Marie ramberg from Stan's drums. Okay, well it's my great pleasure to introduce to the podcast Peter Yuriko who is the head of menswear and design over at Stan Strong's and also Murray ramberg, who is head of marketing at Stan's drums bofur on the line with me now how are we doing today? Very good. Thanks. Very good, except except that it's raining here. That's not while we were used to that whereabouts in the world are you? We are in the south of Sweden in a city called Helsingborg. Helsingborg. Okay, well, now my geography is not the best as people say so. Is this a Is this a big city? Is this a well known city in Sweden? Well, it's, well maybe not well known, but it's, let's say 130,000 people living here. It's just one hour drive from Copenhagen in Denmark. So it's quite close to a bigger city. I've invited you onto the podcast today to talk about STEM strums. I'm really eager to know about it. And perhaps we can start with you, Peter. Well, maybe we'll start with the brand itself, the journey of the brand new brands over 120 years old. I believe you had your anniversary last year celebrating the hundred and 20 years. Since you're founded, please just give us a little bit of a backdrop about the company and maybe when you came in and joined the company. Okay, the company is one on 20 years, as you mentioned, we are short produced from the start was to do ladieswear. So we do lady blouses. But we also do a lot of other things today. So we do need to the we do some jackets, ties, scarves, hankies and things that we think belong together with a shirt. And I think it started like sharp hearing in Helsingborg. And it's actually started a little bit earlier than 120 years. It started in 1883, I think. And at that time, they were selling more or less everything in that sharpen, but they were very well known to make a very good shot. So I think in 1899, they started the first factory, and then it was growing quite fast. So I think in in the 20s is starting to be a really big business. And it's been growing since that I was at Emory. Is it true that it was the founder I believe he actually made them for the captains of the shipping industry that would come into port. Yes, exactly. It did that and I think he also made shirts for I mean for the very noble presence here in Helsingborg at that time, so mean both The ship captains so they help spreading the word about the the nice quality of the shirts. Right? Yeah. We have been in Helsingborg for for well for the whole whole hundred and 20 years. So to say and both Peter and I we have been here for quite a long time I've been in 16 years about before 25 Wow, that's amazing. And so please give me an idea on how big the company is now how many people are working for Stan strums. We have about 50 people working here in the office in in Helsingborg, with everything from design and from marketing. We have a big warehouse, we have customer service, customer service speaks several languages. And, of course, the financial team are here as well. And then we have also our own factory in Estonia since 27 years back, where we have about 85 to 90 people working selling some of our shirts. Wow, amazing. And so Peter, how did you I mean, 25 years, let's dial the clock back. What were you doing before you got introduced distance from? The thing is I haven't been doing so many things before I join stamps, I started actually as a sales skier at Stan stones. And at that time, he also had another company called Oscar Jacobson. samples, both selling suits and jackets, and then a nice shirt from sand stones. And after a while, they noticed that I was interesting in the product. So I started to develop the product and product together with the head of design at that time. It was a guy that's been in company for more than 40 years. And like 10 years ago, perhaps a little bit more, I became a head of design here. And so is your background in pattern cutting. Did you have to do? electrical engineer from the start? Okay. Well, not exactly a lateral move. But you know, still you need the you need the spark? Yeah, yes. Sorry, up that way. All the all the bad jokes I cut out in that one, I will file. A Marie. So I believe you said 16 years. I mean, you You must feel like this is a very tight knit. I mean, it's a family run business, isn't it? Does it have that sense of the brand. And I mean, it's a family business. And we really like we like to work for the company, because it's, it's, it feels like we are family, we also feel the same thing. And we'll say with our agents and salespersons. Everybody likes coming here for the sales conference. And they also in my opinion, that they like to represent the brand because we, for us, it's all about quality. We talk a lot about quality, when it comes to fabrics, and so on. But we also talk about long term relationships with our fabric suppliers. And maybe Peter can talk talk more about that also, with our customers are one of our oldest customers, because they shop have been a customer since 1899. And that is also fantastic that you you you keep on selling our products well and you like to work with a company and we of course like to work with also with our customers and with all our suppliers. So firstly, the value in some way, the long term things and that is also something when you work for a company like that you also have the possibility to develop and to to it's challenging, of course, but it's also very interesting to stay for a long while you can see the results of the work you do. Yes. And maybe we tapped upon the suppliers and your relationship with with the mills, etc. Perhaps you can expand upon that, please. I mean, we work with the best meals in Europe, I would say most of them they are located in in in Italy still. And we have a very, very good cooperation with them. It's not like they are telling us what we should buy we are we are also telling them what we need to buy now and develop things together. And I think that's been very successful for us. Because a lot of the weaving meals today, I would say they have been going for less quality, because of the price. But we still can manage to buy very good fabrics. And I think that's very, very, very important to keep the high quality. And also to discuss that with with our suppliers and make them understand that we really would like to, to have the best what they can offer. Yeah, and it's interesting, you're talking about sustainability earlier on. It feels like well, just having the broad strokes of your company. It feels like sustainability has always been in the force always been a philosophy of the brand since day one. But now sustainability is more of a buzzword It's only free, people have latched on to it because of what's going on with climate control and fashion being one of the biggest polluters of the universe, etc. Do you feel like people are only just starting to catch up on something you've known for a long time? Well, I would say in some way it feels feels like that. But of course, we also have more things to do. I mean, everything from inside the company to, to, I mean, kind of put the litter in the right place gloss in one place, and you know, plastic and so on in one place. But But I mean, if it comes to if we're talking about now shirts, and blouses and so on, I think if you really work with good fabric suppliers, good Mills, and and also the factories that produces our garments. And if you have control over that, and work with really the best, then it's also you know, what you put into it? And if you have that philosophy already from the beginning, then it's, it's not. Yeah, it feels like we've been doing it for for quite a while. And how do you manage to monitor the supply chains? I mean, you say you've had the same factory in Estonia for a long time is this where all of the clothes are produced? We need to have the subcontractors as well, but we are very careful when we pick the subcontractors today. Sorry about that. One of them phoning in right now. I mean, we can't tell them all the shots that we are producing today. I mean, we have had the growth. I mean, we've been doubled the turnover more or less in five to five years, and we can't expand our own factory in that. That sounds so so we need subcontractors, but I mean, our production manager here production manager here is controlling all these factories. And so we know who we are working with. Interesting. Peter, I've got a couple of questions for you about shirts, because I know that Stan strums is, well, it has its background in shirtings. That's your your bread and butter. And I've noticed on the website that you have many different styles of shirts, you can have the slim shirts, or the slim fitting shirts or tuxedo dress shirts, for example. And I think you recommend that all the buttons on a tuxedo shirt have to be black. For me, I think the first option for a button in general is smart rotor because it's natural material. I mean, if you go for a polyester button, I mean there's a lot of waste, and it's it's more or less impossible to get it back to it's I mean, you can't reuse the polyester in the same way as you the mother of pearl is still the best solution. I think also it's beautiful to look at. So I think for me it's the best solution with some of the colours, I noticed that there's quite a lot of hand edge stitching on the colours. Now is that a conscious choice that you go for? This is fake. I think it's been in fashion for a while but I think Yeah, I don't know what actually what the answer to that question. But maybe I can give you a little bit of backfill about where the question came from. Some of them will say that quarter inch, quarter inch stitching is basically in fashion and it's the the common go to a lot of people will say that hand stitch edging on ready to wear shirts is denotes better quality, because it's actually harder to do because there's less room for error. A lot of people within the industry even our shirt makers kind of disagree on this. I was just hoping to get your take on it. I think we do. We do both of these. And I think I think for me, it's the most important about the colour is it software and nice. It feels pretty nice when you've been wearing it for a day. I think that's the most important thing. And I mean we also diffusing is very important the colour I mean we do talk to us and it's like a floating into line in the cover. I think that's the most important one. Yeah, cuz I hear like if you have a fuse both sides, then when say if you're going to come to ionic then you're most susceptible for that bubbling up because the glue in the fuse etc can cause the colour to disintegrate quite quickly. Maybe we can touch upon the latest collection. So you've got the spring summer 2020 that's on the website its themes and focuses on the modern jungle. What was the inspiration for the design coming into this collection? Okay, sorry, I'm not so much into the latest collection here. But But I mean, the morning angle, okay. No, no, okay. Okay, no, but I think there's been a military look around for for some, some time now. I mean, there's been a lot of field jackets and Safari jackets on this time on I would say that the modern yongle is seated today. And I think it fits quite well for for this week. That we will see now. It means it is quite good colour scale as well. The colour palette is just it's a real broad selection that you have there and also the different types of garments so like not restricted to just one Polo it's like the double breasted polos, utility polos, and also notice the field jackets in 100% linen. I don't think there's anything better in a garment than 100% linen field jacket. I think it's just like one of those haymakers of garment sensitive. Do you have any personal favourites from the selection? I liked the jacket that you mentioned very much. I think it's a fantastic piece that I mean, for me, it's not so formal, and you can make it a little bit more formal and I think it fits a lot to many situation you can end up in, I mean, okay, it's not formal for like a suit. But I mean, today it's a bit of a different fashion. We try to keep it a little bit more casual, I would say. And so what would you say is the future for the brand after this collection? Are you looking to grow a bit more globally maybe internationally a bit bricks and mortar where's where's your head at coming into the year 2020 we see that we are growing more or less on each market right now. And it's like we've been growing I think 17% since last year, and I expect us to still grow in these numbers even 444 this year. We see that I mean, we just started that a few markets and we see that we are doing extremely good at these markets to finalise I've got one last question. Who would you like to see as an ambassador for the brand? Maybe someone of like real popular Swedish? No notoriety? Oh, that's a tough question. Apart from the obvious stuff, London the greatest living suite is there anyone else that that springs to mind? Maybe maybe slapped down would be good in our short but he's signed a new contract, right? Yeah, yeah. Nice. Nice. It's good to see him still going. Listen, thank you both so much for your time. I look forward to see more of the collection up and close when when I visit when you concessions in London. That sounds great. Thanks so much. Yeah. Thank you so much to us. Thank you and have a good day. Awesome. Don't London is a great living suite. Right. Of course. landslide. Well, that's the end of the episode a little shorter than usual, but I felt we covered some ground there. Thanks to Peter and Murray for jumping on the podcast. Thank you for listening and leaving the reviews. We got a nice one on iTunes. The other day, Mark underscore Smith gave us a five star review. It's not flouncy Marxist or pretentious. Just a great entertaining insight into really interesting style items a great listen. Not my words, people the words of someone that listens to podcasts. So thanks again for tuning in leaving a review. Until next time, remember it's only fashion people and you're never fully dressed without a smile.