“One of my first dreams when I started Chimi was to make my mother unemployed and only create clothes with her and now, I finally had the chance...”
Earlier this week, at the decadent corner suite at Stockholm’s Nobis hotel, Swedish eyewear brand Chimi presented something rather unexpected: clothing. Aptly dubbed Prototype, the brand’s first toe-dip into garments fits on a single rack. Four off-white items, two looks – one male, one female – founder Charlie Lindström made in collaboration with his mother, Lilian, who has been working as a tailor since the 1970s.
“Growing up with a mum as a tailor has formed me to have high demands and expectations when it comes to quality and different shapes, including an eye for details,” says Charlie. The designer has a thing for “minimalist expression” and “stripped down looks” – an inclination apparent both in the designer’s beloved eyewear and this first collection.
Photo: Chimi
Charlie’s meticulousness was indeed inherited. Lilian trained for four years to become a tailor, after which she worked in the theatre, also crafting pieces for private clients on the side. After three decades of what she describes as “creative and challenging work,” she opened up her own shop, on Stockholm’s Kungsholmen island. In addition to her private clients, she sews prototypes for “a few fashion brands” – ones you’ve undoubtedly heard of.
“Charlie is a creative person, always with a project in the loop,” Lilian says of her son. “He works hard and has been since the start of Chimi. I’m super proud of him and happy to follow the success of the brand.”
Photo: Chimi
Photo: Chimi
In addition to instilling an obsessive attention to detail, having a tailor as a mum had other perks. As a kid, Lilian would sew her son bespoke items, based on the not-so-affordable pieces he saw in shop windows and on his peers. “The first piece my mum sewed for me when I was 15-years-old was a jacket, inspired by a combination of a Burton and a Tiger of Sweden piece,” Charlie recalls. Fittingly, the jacket served as a starting point for Chimi’s Prototype collection. Workwear-ish in its execution, the jackets and trousers are fashioned from recycled nylon and wool mix (“Straight from Italy,” Charlie adds). And if you doubt the designer’s fastidiousness, just hear him describe a push button. “The buttons are from Cobrax. They are the cleanest but also most expressive push button on the market, in my opinion,” he says.
Each piece takes eight-to-10 hours to sew, by hand, by Lilian and her team. “One of my first dreams when I started Chimi was to make my mother unemployed and only create clothes with her and now, I finally had the chance to create something together with her,” Charlie says. “That’s the best part.” Only a handful of each piece will be made to order. It’s a hint of what’s to come – in the fall Chimi will launch a more widely available collection, based on the groundwork set by this collection.
Photo: Chimi
Photo: Chimi
When I ask Lilian about the experience of working with her son, she responds in the cheeky, loving manner only a mother could. “The biggest challenge has been the lack of time, it’s never enough time spent together with my son,” she says. "But, if he could be more on time we could spend more time together.”