From rock'n'roll to fashion royalty: Anine Bing on working with Kate Moss and celebrating the brand's 10th anniversary

When Anine Bing erupted into fashion’s consciousness in the early 2010s, blogging was in its infancy and she was among the brave few forging into this strange new world called the internet. Those who subscribed and scrolled would recall its distinct aesthetic: Bing pictured in studded leather and second-skin denim mixed with vintage finds, snapshots of Los Angeles’ streetscapes and palm trees – Bing made the west coast of the US her home in the early 2000s – all punctuated with an unending stream of archival images of Kate Moss serving as reference and inspiration.

So, while Bing describes having Moss as the face of an upcoming Anine Bing campaign as the “ultimate career highlight” in the 10 years of running her namesake label, it’s also something of a full circle moment.

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At the time of our conversation, Bing has just returned from the shoot with Moss at New York’s Pier59 Studios. “She’s been on my moodboard since day one. I’ve met so many celebrities, so it’s not like I get starstruck, but it was just such a dream come true. I was standing on set, looking over, just thinking ‘…this is Kate Moss! In my clothes!’” she says. “It was a real ‘pinch me’ moment.” Moss weighed in on the pieces she loved throughout the development of the fall/winter collection, which fittingly sees a comeback of Bing’s beloved skinny denim, along with a new ‘Kate’ tote bag that is so adored by Moss herself that it left with her after the shoot.

And as if things couldn’t get any more rock’n’roll, the campaign fronted by Moss will be soundtracked by Bing. “I’m working on a new record, which is super exciting,” she says. “It’s like therapy for me, writing music. It’s a different way of being creative and it’s such a big part of me. So now I’m back in the studio whenever I have a little moment.”

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The creation of the record marks another full circle moment for Bing: a return to the musical roots that preceded the birth of her namesake label. “I was in a band before I started the brand,” she says with a smile. “I was doing music before I did clothes.” The band was Kill Your Darlings, a sultry soft rock outfit in which Bing was the mesmerising singer-songwriter and guitarist, complete with black nail polish, heavily lined eyes, tousled hair and ethereal vocals.

Seeing Bing now, in the home office of her idolised abode in Montecito, California, it’s hard to reconcile this accomplished fashion mogul with the free-spirited frontwoman of yesteryear. The space around her is bathed in natural light, dress mannequins positioned just so, lush greenery in view through large windows. “When people come here, they say it almost feels like Italy, like an Italian house,” says Bing of the home she shares with her Danish husband, Nico and their two children,12-year-old Bianca and 10-year-old Benjamin.

The Mediterranean mood of the home is countered with treasured vintage finds, eclectic decor scoured during travels and plenty of Scandinavian gems. “We have carpets from our trips to Istanbul, a couch that we found in Denmark,” Bing lists. “And Terry O’Neill – who is one of my favourite photographers who we now work with as a brand – we have prints of his work around the house mixed with lots of family photos.” While the home certainly lends itself to the pages of this publication, it’s also an intimate reflection of Bing and her family. “It’s personal, it feels like a home. Some homes are just picture perfect for a magazine, but it was important that we created a space for us. And I think we’ve managed that – people always say it’s cosy and comfortable and has a good vibe,” she says. “That’s all I want, for everybody to feel at home.”

Behind Bing’s effortless polish and sincerely sweet nature, there are still glimmers of the grit and edge of her rocker past, a side that has surely helped her navigate the tumultuous highs and lows of running a fashion label. From the outside, it can look like the meteoric growth of her brand was organic and somewhat inevitable, but Bing is quick to point out this wasn’t without grind. “It might look easy from the outside but you don’t just go and start a brand and then ‘phoom’,” her hands mimicking an explosion over her head. “It’s so much hard work.”

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The hard work had started out in a garage, in keeping with the rock’n’roll of it all. Nico – now the brand’s CEO – brought his own background in manufacturing to the table (“he knew how to make the products and I knew exactly what I wanted to make”) and together the pair were able to kick things off with a small debut capsule of key pieces that shaped the brand’s DNA. “We launched a couple of jeans, a couple of T-shirts, a leather jacket,” Bing recollects. “It was so simple, maybe 10 pieces.” The ‘Anine Bing woman’ naturally evolved over time, based on Bing’s own personal wardrobe wishlist, soon steering into suiting and tailoring including the wool cashmere blazer that Bing wears for our meeting (“I knew I was talking to Vogue today, so I wore a blazer, because it instantly makes you feel good”). Despite this dose of sophistication amongst core offering of Anine Bing’s street-ready pieces, the ethos of her label has never changed: “What’s most important is that it feels effortless, timeless and just so easy to wear. We don’t overcomplicate things, whether it’s skinny jeans or suit pants.”

When asked why, in such a saturated market of blogger-turned-brand hopefuls, Bing believes her label achieved such success – regularly endorsed by some of the world’s most stylish and influential women such as Hailey Bieber and The Duchess of Sussex – she humbly puts it down to timing, foremost. “I did it before everybody else realised the power of Instagram,” she says. It’s true that Bing was a forward-thinking early adopter of the platform, already mastering branding and monetisation while most were still fiddling around with garishly over-saturated filters. “We were at the forefront, we had time with us, and I think it’s because of our unique point of view on fashion, too,” she adds.

This ‘unique view on fashion’ comes down to the way Bing packages a certain Scandinavian take on style, acutely informed by Bing’s upbringing. Born in Lyngby, outside Copenhagen, Bing spent the first decade of her life in Denmark, and the subsequent decade in a small village of Järna outside Stockholm. “Growing up in Scandinavia is amazing,” Bing says. “It’s a simple place, a simple life, but it also really gave me a drive. Scandinavia gave me my work ethic, and also an appreciation for simplicity, that I’ve always taken with me.”

Bing’s drive is the real deal, seeing her secure her first paying job in Järna at 12 years old. “Every Sunday I would bike nine kilometres to a little cafe and clean before they opened. I loved having a job, I opened a bank account and started saving money right away so that one day I could move away from that little village and get out into the big world,” she reminisces. Bing did exactly that, uprooting to Los Angeles to follow big dreams in her late teens – but always carrying this significant sense of Scandinavian simplicity with her, right through to her design approach today. “I think I simplified fashion, in a way,” she says. “I made it easy and approachable for women around the world.”

Bing, along with her husband and children, maintain a strong connection to Scandinavia, where most of their extended family are still based. The clan regularly speak Danish at home and spend summers in Jutland. “It’s a beautiful, simple way to spend summer,” Bing says. “We stay in a house on the beach, and the kids get to experience how it is to be free in Denmark. They can bike to the grocery store, run down to the beach. It’s really important for both me and Nico to show the kids where we come from, and these beautiful values that you need to experience.”

Despite the deep affection she holds for the Nordics, anyone can tell that Bing – along with her family and her brand – is exactly where she needs to be. “As challenging as it has been, it has been so incredible to build this American dream… coming here with nothing, starting out of our garage and building this together,” she says. “It’s empowering.”