Tiger of Sweden Fall 2023 Ready-to-Wear collection
Tiger of Sweden has an anniversary year ahead of it. The Scandinavian company was founded in 1903 as a men’s tailoring specialist and was the first company in Europe to manufacture suits. Like any legacy company, it has had its ups and downs over 120 years, but under creative director Bryan Conway, who came to Stockholm via Burberry and JW Anderson, things are coming together.
For a designer, it is an equally great challenge to highlight a historical tradition and at the same time broaden the discourse. In Conway’s special case, he gets to define what a Swedish heritage brand means. His answer: “open and honest.” He comes from Burberry and can’t help thinking about formal wear, he added. And making a splash for the sake of it is not his style; he is more for the slow burn.
During a showroom preview, Conway said that the way the brand and Swedish society developed last fall led him to take inspiration from two culturally important institutions, albeit for different reasons. The Royal Palace, an imposing neoclassical monolith, has baroque treasures inside. The other, Kulturhuset Stadsteatern, is a post-war architectural landmark, a building cut in half and glazed, which is open to all.
That dichotomy – opposites, juxtaposed – was the starting point for a collection that mixed graphic motifs inspired by tiles from each location with subtle experiments in tailoring and texture. For men, perennial house favorites like the skinny pants worn by indie rockers a generation ago keep company with sharply tailored suits and more generous pleated trousers, a base from which to build an entire wardrobe. All leather pieces are reversible, for example: a caramel zippered leather vest turns black on the back, and a shearling can go either way.
For women, tailored looks can include leggings, shown here with mules. Shine came in the form of a tawny vinyl coat with a tonal satin finish or a high-neck, ruched vinyl dress with zips up the front. A tailored down trench also looked strong, as did genderless coats, suits and accessories made from coarse-textured Swedish wool from the island of Gottland.