There are few things that grab hold of us like art. It awakens our imagination and creativity; it feeds our ability to innovate and change. Art make us ignore differences, reach out and connect across barriers and engage honestly in ways only deeply social experiences can do. Limitato believe that great art should drive cultural change and lead collaborative expressions. Their partnerships challenge the way art is to be appreciated by mixing worlds of fashion, hospitality and current affairs. Limitato has come together with some of the world’s most illustrious artists and photographers; from their collections they use selected pieces and convert them into ’Limitato Wearable Art’. The love, and the attention to detail that goes into every piece of their limited-edition garments reflects the exceptional calibre of the original work. In 2015 Limitato partnered with Terry O’Neill, laying the foundation for future projects inspired by their passion for art and photography as well as their desire to share it in new ways. Mr O’Neill has been at the frontline of creative fame for over 50 years and Limitato’s exclusive designs feature his profiles of an array of film and rock n roll legends such as Raquel Welch and the late David Bowie.
For this episode of the Menswear Style Podcast Peter Brooker speaks to the two founders of Swedish fashion label Limitato, Gustav Peterson and Emrik Olausson. They discuss how the two became friends in childhood, their early passion for fashion and when they first thought up the idea of working with photographers and artists to print renowned photographs and art onto luxury t-shirts.
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This episode is brought to you by our friends at high smile. Like I mentioned in last week's episode, the new and improved teeth whitening kit by hi smile is an absolute must in any beauty routine. If you don't want to spend hundreds of pounds at the dentist to whiten your teeth then they're at home alternative that doesn't cause any pain or sensitivity is a perfect addition to any grooming routine. Just to sweeten the deal a little more than offering all of our listeners 20% of a limited time only use the code menswear style at checkout to receive 20% of high smile today. The website highest smile teeth.com Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The menswear style podcast. I'm your host Pete Berger, and in today's episode we speak to Emmerich and Gustav creators and founders of limitado. limitado is a celebration to the independence of style for wearable art. Their philosophy is that great art should drive cultural change and lead collaborative expressions. Their partnerships which includes working alongside the late great Terry O'Neill challenge the way AR is to be appreciated by mixing worlds of fashion, hospitality and current affairs. We'll get to that shortly. It's coming up. Firstly, let me tell you about the Member Area on the website menswear style.co.uk simply click the Member Area button on the top right of the homepage and you'll be taken to our discounts and loyalty website. This is where you will see exclusive discounts and privileges from hundreds of your favourite High Street brands within fashion, lifestyle beauty and more. We currently have 20% of that new balance 15% off at Hawes and Curtis 10% of it Tim loan and 55% of at Cornerstone well. You can use these discounts both online and in store helping you to save over 2000 pounds per year. 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 emrich NGO staff creators and founders of limitado. It's my great pleasure to introduce Gustav and Emmerich creators and founders of limitado. How you doing today? Gentlemen? Great things go here in Sweden. Fantastic. So Gentlemen, I caught a little video view online. And my first impressions were well how incredibly young you guys are? Well, actually, no, my first impression was, well, you both have a lustrous head of hair. Yeah. So I'm wondering if this was how, like the basis of your friendship was that you both looked at each other and go well, we're both both easy on the eye. Both got a good head of hair. Let's start something here. So there was we had more in common? Yeah. So maybe you can give me a thumbnail sketch. How did it How did you guys meet and and how did limitado get started? We're from different. We're from like cities outside of Gatlinburg. We went to different schools, but we were like we're competing towards each other in like street hockey. But then we were playing playing in the same team and soccer. Yeah, football. And one day after a street hockey game, a competition we decided to go home together. And I don't know what we did. But we I think later on, we became really good friends very close friends. And then in then we were like this was in, like, I don't know how old we were but maybe 1010 years when you're when you're 15 you're starting in high school in Sweden. And then we got into all of our friends. We are like a group of 1515 guys who you know, childhood friends. But everyone got in the same class apart from you and me through got in another class, but we were in the same class, which was kind of funny. And that's when we became really close friends. And when we I think we both had I think that mutual interest in entrepreneurship. Yeah, yeah. And we could you know, like you I think it was all about finding a way how we can you know, start something on our own and build our own thing and and from somewhere along the line. We also had a big interest in fashion. And I remember I recall us doing appointments with people who from Sweden, who agents production agents who, yeah, we wanted to do suits, we wanted to do I think, like, from beginning like a whole range. Yeah. But we wanted to do a whole fashion collection, but we were, I think 1819 years old. And I think pretty fast, we got to realise that we have to, we have to start somewhere. And we have to find our niche, which we do have friends and family friends who are into fashion work in the industry. So and everyone was like, you got to find your your thing. And we did, actually. And we are after high school restoring the university in Yeah, we moved into engine shopping is sitting in the middle of Sweden. Okay. So after two years in, I think it was the summer between high school and university where we like, Okay, let's do this. Let's start a fashion brand. For real. Yeah, we came up with a name limitata, which is really about I think we're trying to find authenticity that's like what we're striving towards, and and what better way than to, I think we mutually had an idea of doing something which was limited, so so that when you were buying into this, you were actually buying something which would wouldn't come back in the year after looking the same. Like, you know, you wanted to do something which, you know, you could you could you could all and look back at in five years. And you know, this was that edition, it was that thing, right. So, where limitata came from, and we, you know, we start searching, and all of a sudden we were on I think he was even on Google Google Trends. Yeah, I remember. Yeah, I was just like, I typed in limited edition. And it translated into Latin. The word limitado came nice. So it was just completely random. And then we tried, was we stopped, we started doing belts, so we import like Sweden. Sweden has a pretty good copper man, like, we're good on copper in Sweden. Right? So we bought Swedish copper. And we drove 20 minutes out from the University City, we were living in every Friday afternoon to review samples, which was an old Smith, retired old Smith who, who are handmade hand making those who were hand making belts and bracelets for us. Yeah, but the problem was that we realised after one year, I think he could only manage to do like, for the belts in a mount, which came a big problem for us. There were, it wasn't a good business in that point, but we is very exclusive. But I imagine it's gonna take a while to build at that rate. Yeah, we started building up like, like a store. And I think the last summer before we took the took the decision of of dropping out of university to say after a second year, we had an event in our hometown, where we basically invited friends and family. And, and we start and we sold those belts. And, you know, we like that summer, we're travelling around trying to sell belts and bracelets online. And, and like, all of a sudden, we were just like, you know, this, like, we have to change the model and going to more fashion. And also, we had, we felt that we will try to reproduce the things we did in China, for example. You know, to see, like, okay, we could do a gold as well. Uh huh. But the samples that came back was you will get the quality wasn't the same as essence, we then have the feeling the leather we were doing for the belts was from, like a very, like one of the most prestigious leather producers in the world, which is also in Sweden, based in Sweden. Yeah. So so we were just, you know, and then we were, we decided, Okay, let's do the real green, which is fashion. And so with the things we've made, and the things we have all we had already created, we we started with T shirts, and we started doing printed t shirts would print Yeah, with with photo art on limitado. And correct me if I'm wrong, guys, you you guys have been going about five years now, I believe. Yeah, I would say four years. Yeah, four years, four years and going through some of the collections on the website, which I encourage everyone to do. By the way. It's limitado dot shop. It's a place people can find this. Yeah. And you got some great artwork on there and noticeably, the late Terry O'Neill is on there. And he's got some photo, you've got some photographs on some of your wearable garments. So how did that deal come about? And maybe you can talk a little bit about the licencing for those because I imagine that was quite a conversation right? licencing is I would say a bigger part. More than like creating the the limitata Look, I would say because it's such a big part of our business. So and that's why I think we don't see ourselves as designers. I think we see ourselves more as entrepreneurs in a fashion context. And I think that Terry Terry was the first artist we signed on board. And I think he because he, when he was in our age, he was playing Yes, same time, he were actually shooting aeroplanes at the Heathrow Airport, I think it was. And so Terry, I don't know, it was kind of like, he was faith that he started taking photos of Rockers, and which later on became, you know, the stones, and all these guys, so. So, you know, Terry took the photos of Rolling Stones before they came rolling stones. Right. And he were hanging out with Bowie before but we really became Boeing. So he had an eye and he just had that natural thing, which, you know, he were at the right place the right time. And, and that was the same thing that happened to us. Exactly. So we were a part of an exhibition in and it's terrorist exhibition. And Terry walks in, and yeah, there there, he sees our T shirts and our prints. And he's like, I want to work with these guys, who isn't who learning. And and, you know, he saw us and I think he felt Yeah, but I also when it when he saw the quality of the T shirts, it's like, we always print them on a velvet pouch, which is, which is a new thing to do. Yeah, was sourced for like, several, like a lot of like, I think almost every year we sourced in Sweden, because Sweden has the city, which is called boroughs where a lot of textile business is going through. So we sourced for a lot of a long time to find a fabric, which doesn't fade away when you print it. But also in the same time, we wanted to print it on a patch, which were then stitched onto the T shirt, because the whole idea would work. But art we didn't want it to be printed direct on a T shirt, because we thought that, you know, then we would remove the whole feeling of, of art, you know. Yeah. And and I think that was also which is kind of fun to see today, where we have customers who bought an old print from previous seasons ago. They're coming back and say, Can we buy a plain t shirt because I want to stitch my old print which you don't do anymore? So you're like, why don't you just buy a new one? Damn it. Keep the pirate ship afloat? No, but I think then was just, we were 21 when we signed with Terry, we it took us six months after that. It was it was slow version. Yeah. And you know, we're from Sweden. So and we were very young. So you know, the English wasn't that good. So we were sitting on Google Translate negotiating with I still have the same problems. Yeah. We were negotiating with with one of the head like, biggest photographers and his publisher when we were very young and and then it cannot it didn't really took off direct. But after signing Terry, we got got together the first t shirts and the T shirt lecture, which was also then we realised that why shouldn't we do this with more artists? Yeah. Because Because what we understood was that when we started selling this into the stores, because we were like all over Sweden driving around knocking doors, trying to get these into the retailers because we wanted to build the value for the brand. But we understood that there was a customer buying into Terry O'Neill t shirts. So whether it would be an 18 year old guy or 25 year old guy just thinking you know this a CT print or he could he he knew that Jimi Hendrix was you know, a cool, iconic person. But the same time we have the 45 year old guy who, who actually could relate to Jimi Hendrix or David Bowie because he was growing up with it. So it's kind of the idea of doing I wouldn't say merge, but it's in a way in this merge. It's like it's merchandise for like the artists and the that are most important that the faces we put on a T shirts, but we wanted to do it in in a way which would create a substantial value for for the artists because when you walk into a gallery, you we we had the ID of the T shirt being presented on a clothing rack next to the actual piece of art. Right But the terrorists art is worth. Let's say we have faded away. Photography photography. caught with I don't know 20 let's say let's say 20,000 euro And how to do a T shirt, which would have next to without, without devaluing that. So doubt ID and and, and that was that's also the idea with us doing a packaging for each piece we sell, we're having together with a certificate of authenticity, which is domain ID, what a certificate is to, you know, that's how you when you buy a piece of, of original art from a famous photographer or an artist, you'll get that certificate. And that's, you know, what's the value. And we can see today how people actually are asking for certificates. And you know, sometimes there's a certificate in a box, which is missing, and, you know, doesn't take more than five minutes after the customer has opened this package, until we get an email saying, Hey, where's my certificate? Yeah. So it's very important. And, and it's, I think that's where, you know, that's all striving towards authenticity. And, you know, trying to have, like, we were speaking about it the other day, where you walk into a home, and there's a home with just white walls. And then you walk into a hot home, where you'll have art all on the walls. How much more interesting and how much more how much more impressions you get by, you know, having that art on the walls. But also, there's, there's a, you know, there's something to, like, have a communication about? Yes. So that's like the idea of, of wearing something, which isn't just like this is from the spring, summer 2020 collection. But to have something which is, you know, this is This photo was taken 1969 by Terry O'Neill, of Jimi Hendrix, you're exploring this, for example, just to give you an idea of like the ID we have. So what's the conversation? Like to begin with? I know, Terry's stumbled onto you guys, does he then go, look, I've got about 10 pictures? Or does he just open up his archives and go, you guys just take your pick? Talk to my publisher, and I'll see you later down the road when we're both hammering checks. Actually, the thing with what I think Terry realised was that, you know, for for the artists and kind of our leverage towards the artist is really that we're giving them first of all exposure, within a context where there's, there's like the generations growing up to become, you know, the next level, the next generation of art collectors. You know, those are the ones which are buying our T shirts, those sort of ones, which we are trying to educate about Terry, and about his work. So so he, I think he saw an opportunity on introducing art to a new generation. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. And by the way, it's also kind of it works the other way, which I think maybe you're just trying to tap upon that after going through your website, you can see all the other artists that you're collaborating with. And all of a sudden, I'm now looking into Sarah Pope, Sarah Pope, I should say, oh, Norman Parkinson, I'm now going through his archives. These are, these are photographers and artists that, you know, aren't really on my radar. But now I'm looking at these guys and going Oh, great. I would never have found out about these. Had you ever been through for your platform? Exactly. No, I think I think it's interesting. Because as you say, there's like, there's so much out there. But also you have to work you have to like what we are also very much working on is like, Okay, how do we source like, how do we find the correct artists. So today, we, we mainly work with, we have a head of licencing today. And we are trying to find artists, fine artists and photographers, which has the same level as Terry, even though they may be up and coming. They may be unknown, but you still want to find the guys which will end up being selling its art in the same gallery as Terry. Right. So we will also we're always trying to have, you know, artists that are striving towards authenticity. And I think Sarah, for example, has done a pretty good job. She has her niche, but she's also super picky and she's very aware of her image and you know, where she's being of who's collecting her art but also where she's being sold in what galleries she worked with and so on and so on. So I think it's like and but what is also I think is very interesting is is a guy for example, like Norman Parkinson, which which which really is like today we work with another photographer called called named Rio camp, which you will see on our website. This inspiration comes from one out of many, the one of the guys that his inspiration comes from is Norman Parkinson, Norman Parker's shooting Vogue covers back in the 50s. So you know, it's like There's it's more interesting that way than just finding someone out of, I don't know, like, I don't say that Instagram is not a good platform to find art and photography and all this from but I think there's also there's something deeper to tap into. And and then once you start realising what we are tapping into, I think you will very soon I understand that, you know, we're very, we're clever in a way. Well imagine you have to be quite ruthless with the the vetting process because I can only imagine the amount of submissions you get from, let's say, for example, my girlfriend who takes 1000 pictures of the cats every day, she then has a great idea. Well, this cat looks great on a T shirt. Here's the cat out of the water bowl. Here's the cat, the cat watching TV. I get it, you're into cats, but you know, nobody knows about your cats apart from you. Yeah, I'm guessing you have to have someone that's got like a modicum of following rather than just say 200 other people that like the same cat photo? Yeah. But I think also, also, it's, I think, I think we are very up to I think we liked the idea of findings, you know, artists. For example, we have a really good we have a really good example, Laura Belle Skorupski, which is a fine artist from Australia. When we, when we signed with her a year ago, she had, I think she had 50,000 followers on Instagram. Today, she has 120. And our I don't know, this was two weeks ago, maybe she has even more now but she is growing. And I think that's also what's fun, too. You know, we're a part of her journey. And and she's a part of ours. So so it's the relationship between us and the artists is, you know, that's what we're, that's, that's what we're all about. And, and and that's why, you know, Terry O'Neill led us in the first time. So we were actually sitting behind a computer in his archive looking at, like, you know, he showed us all the Roger Moore photos he had ever taken. Yeah, but we were also trying to find, you know, okay, what's your motive for Roger Moore photo, we're expressing that vibe that we were also trying to tap into so we went with him holding the Magnum shooting the glass that's still on them love that photo? From Yeah, we doubter states as well, like, probably more estate, whatever. So So not only do you have to sign a deal with Terry O'Neill, you also have to sign a deal. Exactly. On and they said so. So that's what we're also Yeah, we went down the road with the Hendrix estate. And it was quite a journey. And, and it was a lot of approval for him since missions and everything, but it's, you know, in the end, when we start, you know, we're actually being we're actually being allowed by, by by Hendrix estate to, you know, keep his keep his legacy alive. And, and yes, of course, you can see a lot of, of products out there over a lot of famous people, but in the way that we do it, it's totally legal. And yeah, and it's, and it's, and we try to just keep keep our core value. And I think that limitado is, in a way we like rock and roll. Yeah, I'm not gonna we're not gonna say anything else. But we like rock and roll. And that's why when we started, if it wasn't a picture, Rockstar would at least trying to find a picture of a person, which were in a way, you know, radiating that energy, that rock and roll half. And that score. So when I first stumbled upon your website, the huge dichotomy that I have in my mind is that it has the price tag of a luxury brand. Yeah. Effectively, their t shirts. And I think you probably get asked this quite a bit, because of the price point. It's more down to the quality and the art, like you were saying earlier, but then the actual conversation you always have to have with people is educating them that this is what you're buying into. Yeah. So you do you kind of find yourself getting a little bit tireless with that conversation, or do you find that people are now getting it? Yeah, no, I think more and more people get it. I think it's about like, first of all, if you look at our T shirts, compared to fashion, house, t fashion, any fashion houses, t shirts, and we are lower in the price, but it's also all like we're not we're not lower, but but we are lower, but the quality is higher. Yeah. So the quality and that's the right answer. We have higher quality and we have a price which I don't think It's not it's not it's not low, it's high. But it's it's, you know, it has to be because you're buying organs, you're not buying a T shirts. Yeah, you know. So that's the, and you gentlemen must realise that you're kind of in. So you're in the like the top 100% of people that has an idea to launch a T shirt brand. I think everybody is even I've had that idea. But you must be also aware that you're in the naught point naught 1%. of brands and companies actually make it. And they don't just have stockpiles of T shirts sitting in their mom's garriage. So that must be a nice feeling to know that you've kind of over that threshold. Yeah. Yeah, it is nice. And, but we've worked. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a 24 seven job. Because, you know, in the beginning, we thought, you know, we just had to had, we just had to have the right person on the T shirts, and and we could just launch a website, and it would sell. But yeah, you can't just put a like, like, you can't just put a shop in in the middle of the forest and expect for people to come there. You know, despite you having all these amazing things there. You need to communicate this in a way and I think the wholesale business for us like the retailers, such as your parents or luisaviaroma Rena Shan Corso Como de ECI. Orford? Yeah, like we needed those guys to understand what we understood. Because they are the ones who can really deliver the the message, but but also the help with all the distributors we have today. Yes, so thanks to us. We got a wild card to Pete you mo three summers ago. s s 18. s 18. Yeah, so Spring Summer 2018. We got a wild card to PTO mo two weeks before, it was actually time to go to PTO Mo. We wrapped up wrapped together a collection which were included with Terry O'Neill, but that they was only t shirts, t shirts and and we drove down 25 or 30 hours, we're supposed to take 2025 down to Florence. And we had no idea you know what's going to happen? We had a we had a booth we knew and we're just going to put the T shirts there and just, you know, showcase what we're up to. And it didn't take more than 10 minutes I was out buying coffee whenever he calls me and it's like, Hey, you get to come down here because this This is crazy. And we I came there and you know we were stuck in our booth for I think the first five hours it was sold at over a tenner is that ways that's not how the story? No, no, I think I think what really what was really happening was that the yeah of course we had a lot of really good buyers there but but the main thing was that there were agents and distributors from all over the world with showrooms in Paris. Benelux Yes, we're Amsterdam all over the place who who you know those guys wearing? They understood the value Ontario meal they understood the value of an Jimi Hendrix and also limitata yes of course because limitado summons all of those names and all of those artists and all of those estates up in as a brand so I they understood what we were doing and we had 15 retailers in Sweden when we went to PT and we Yeah, we follow the Cecil so that collection that people were buying into that summer which was the first one we delivered 250 retailers approximately before and I remember we didn't have any warehouse so it was me and we stopped packaging like all the T shirts and sent them out to the stores it was like three weeks of a lot of work in that warehouse. I would never go there yet again but I bet the guy at the post office knew you really well first name basis what your point was down the pub yeah so basically I think so this you know we learn like we learned the hard way so to say and we will say he was a janitor and and then we were like all of a sudden we were having all these retailers we delivered on time the first system and you know then we were all of a sudden about to do another video. Well, well and and the brand just seems to be growing there's a I just have to go onto the website to see how many concessions and stores you're in like you say Harrods earlier, your profile down in Brighton all these places. And so limitado dot shop is the place that people can go in and also it's a website that you can just fall down a rabbit hole in I mean, you can just peruse around not just the not just the garments but also the artists. The journal They're getting the whole store. It's a really nice layout. I think also what's what's the tricky part of her doing fashion is that you know, it goes very fast. Yeah. So the seasonal, you know, following with the see sense. And and, and, and for us, you know, yet we have to get new artists but also we also beat and also bigger collections. Yes. Because the bigger department stores, they always asking for a bigger collection, right? Because in the beginning, they start buying t shirts, but then after one season, they go into like sweatshirts, hoodies, jackets, and so on. And now we do shoes as well. accessories. Yeah, we're doing a whole range, the shoe. It's, and you know, he like each category of product, you have to find the producer, which which can do this. And it has to be on the same level as the T shirts and quality level. Yeah, yeah. So so everything has to be like now we're doing shoes with the same factory that does the shoes for Alexander McQueen, the sneakers knife. So you know, it's like, and we had to find a guy which you know, could help us with it. So same guy that did the belts, is he like doing doing 20 a year? Luckily, no, we found a get we actually found a really cool guy, which does, which worked a lot for post mates back in the days. So and you know, he saw our brand in PT. And he was and and and this guy was the one who had who had the idea of doing all over printed for post mates. So he took the you know, the the pulse mid stripes and printed the wallets on the inside. And he and he saw our brand. And he was like, you know, this is next level of what he was doing. And he had the connections with the factories in Italy. So it just went really fast and was super easy for us to to do. Yes. So if you are you're ever inherits. If you're ever inheritance, go there and have a look at the shields because we have our own design soul. And you have to feel the shoe in order to really understand what it is we're doing. Interesting. Well, I'll be in there because the girlfriend likes to go in there and buy tea, like on a regular basis. T shirt. When she goes I'll be getting the tea. I'm like, well, I'll go get t shirts. Gentlemen, listen, it's been a real pleasure talking to you. It's great to see the trajectory just going one way for this brand. It's great. I encourage everyone to go and look at it online. limitado dot shop is where people can find it. We'll leave a link in the show notes and on the Instagram and people can find you at limitado over there and Facebook as well. So, Me gusta thanks again for joining me. Thank you a lot and take care. Speak to you soon. Take care. Bye. Bye. Thank you, me. Thank you Good stuff. The joining us today and thank you for listening and sharing and telling a friend that's how we keep the pirate ship afloat. Keep the show going. Keep the lights on, however you want to say. In the meantime, limitado dot shop is the place to go. But you'll find all the images in show notes over at menswear style.co.uk and until next time, remember it's only fashion people and you're never fully dressed without a smile.