As the brand director of cult Swedish sneaker label Axel Arigato, Iranian-Swede Sanaz Parham was recently acknowledged in Forbes' revered 30 Under 30 list. We sit down with Gothenburg-based Parham to hear about her journey
Sanaz Parham is quite the trailblazer. The 28-year-old is the Brand Director of Axel Arigato, leading a team of over a dozen staff members in brand marketing, social media, e-commerce and retail design teams for 12 brick-and-mortar stores across Europe and the UAE. As a founding employee at the Swedish sneaker label, she has spent the past eight years working alongside founders Max Svärdh and Albin Johansson to grow a brand built on a direct-to-consumer model with culture at its forefront, referencing art, music and architecture. Parham’s customer-focused approach has generated a following of over two million for the brand, and doubled revenue since 2020. This year, she made the coveted ranks of Forbes 30 under 30 list, amongst other top professionals in media and marketing across Europe. But where did it all begin for her?
A first-generation Iranian-Swede, Parham was born in Iran and raised in Gothenburg, where she had moved with her mother and older sister before her first birthday. Like many fashion greats, her journey began with a retail job, where she spent her teens as a sales assistant whilst studying. “I was 14 when I got my first job in a local fashion retail store in Gothenburg. I got paid around seven pounds an hour but it taught me so much,” says Parham. “I come from humble beginnings and I didn’t grow up in the most pleasant area of East Gothenburg. In fact, it was very empty of anything beautiful and creative so I was really keen to start my working life early and make some money. That job was one step closer to that dream, so I just remember being so excited when I got it.”
It was working on the shop floor that helped Parham realize that the consumer-facing fashion industry was the path for her. “I ended up loving retail. Just being so close to the products, but also being able to really gravitate towards the customers, I think that's what I like the most. Connecting with them and being able to solve their problems through the products that we were selling was something I really enjoyed and looking back now, it was my first introduction into marketing.”
Growing up in an environment that lacked creativity really made me turn towards clothes as a bit of an escape, as well as a form of self-expression
Sanaz Parham
At the time, creative marketing wasn’t something Parham had ever considered. Like many first generation immigrants, her family were more encouraging of traditional professions when it came to discussing her future. “Iranian parents and Middle Eastern parents put a lot of emphasis on education so that was the most important thing growing up. When I finished gymnasium [the senior years of high school] at 18, I enrolled at the Gothenburg University of Business and Economics. It was 2014 at the time, and while I did well at business school I just knew immediately that it wasn’t what I wanted to do. I was never the academic type and I’ve been a fashion lover as far as I can remember. Growing up in an environment that lacked creativity really made me turn towards clothes as a bit of an escape, as well as a form of self-expression.”
In 2015, a few months after Axel Arigato had officially launched in Gothenburg, Parham spent months emailing founders Svärdh and Johansson before they eventually agreed to meet with her. “I was still in business school at the time but I would email them non-stop begging for a job. When they finally met up with me, I didn’t realize they had only launched the brand four months prior because they already had such a huge following on social media.” She was 20, and had no real experience at the time but one thing she did have was audacity. “I’m a firm believer in the policy of 'fake it 'til you make it'. When I joined Axel Arigato I was 20 and I didn’t really know what I was doing at all. Max and Albin were running the brand just the two of them and they brought me on board to work in customer service because that’s all they needed help with at the time, but as the brand grew, so did my responsibilities.”
In true start-up form, Parham was doing a bit of everything in her first few years at the brand - invaluable experience she credits for having taught her everything she knows today. “Starting at Axel so young really kicked off my entrepreneurial spirit early on. I didn’t know how to run customer service, how to produce and art direct a shoot, how to create a marketing plan or how to design physical stores or bring something to the market but I believed in myself. Being young and being naive, and having that entrepreneurial and hard working attitude meant that I just kept going regardless.”
When it comes to advice and guidance, she names Svärdh as her inspiration and mentor. “Max is the ultimate entrepreneur. He started working with denim at the age of 15, and was hustling on the streets, selling his own products. He’s never been employed, he has always had his own business and I’ve learned so much from him, especially when it comes to leadership,” she says. “The way he treats the team and the way he is with people - people actually come onboard because they want to work with him and they feel such a connection to the bigger picture. He has always been that person that saw me before I saw myself and really believed in my potential.”
Today, Parham serves as that same role model for young people who want to follow in the footsteps of her career. While her achievements to date are just the beginning of her story, her advice to others is that there’s no such thing as starting too young or inexperienced, in fact it gives you an upper hand. “People should start young in the fashion industry because when you’re young and you’ve had no exposure to the industry, it’s a lot easier to question everything,” she says. “You’re unafraid to go against the grain and you don’t see any obstacles because you’re not constrained by all the old rules and ways of thinking. You have the audacity to be different when you’re young and that’s what’s needed to really make it.”