The Swedish brand just launched its first line of women’s essentials. This week, CDLP drops a new limited-edition collection in collaboration with Swedish fine art artist Jwan Yosef (pictured above). Consisting of a coverall and two t-shirts, it wants to embrace and resurrect the local Swedish textile industry that over the last decades has been phased out and replaced by international textile manufacturers.
— We have designed Jwan Yosef’s ’essential garments’, says co-founder and creative director Christian Larson. Our design director Ingrid Guttormsen has created an interpretation of the classic artist coverall, elevated in both design and the innovation of materials. We experimented with a new fabric blend of one of our favourite materials lyocell — one of the most sustainable materials you can find — and mixed it with linen.
For the production of this new coverall, CDLP has joined forces with local Swedish textile manufacturer Malmö Industries. The micro-manufacturer, founded by Warsame Jama, is specialising in small-scale collections employing a primarily immigrant population who may otherwise not be able to pursue their craft in our country.
— Keeping production local helps to minimise our footprint, says Larson, while also boosting the Swedish textile industry. It has been a heart-to-heart collaboration that would have been hard to facilitate across borders and we hope to make more of our collections together.
What has been the most challenging part here?
— Obviously, the cost of working locally can be higher, but we have learned that close collaboration can smooth the design and development process, and make other gains to the process that we did not foresee.
