What is Stitch N Stones and why did you start?

Stitch N Stones is a lifestyle brand with a focus on our values, ethics, equality, and sustainability. The brand is founded by me, Anna Nilsson and my colleague Emma Ruzicka. Stitch N Stones is today a product-based brand, but in the transition towards adding more services to our business model as well. We’re mainly working with designing and creating accessories and details that we sew by handi n our workshop in Åre.

The brand started as a school project during studies in product development, back in 2010, and we started innovating on headgear. Together we developed our first product, a zipper beanie, which is still a classic Stitch N Stones product in our collection. During the years we have grown, but within limits, since we still produce most of the products ourselves. We mainly work with second-hand fabrics and deadstock materials from other brands which is great, since we’re passionate about circular design. Working with deadstock also puts pressure on us as designers and product developers, many of our products is a result of what kind of waste fabric is available. We still have our classical products, like beanies and winter caps, that represent the day to day lifestyle costumer, but then we also have our high-end vega hats with flowers and shiny details. In the latest years, we have also seen an increase of waste of outdoor fabric with great function and quality, this has resulted in some versatile sport caps to wear when our running or trekking on the mountain.

Our own products are still our main focus in Stitch N Stones but today we’ve also developed more connecting services like design collaborations with other companies, mending workshops, lectures, and also dj: ing at events. We’re passionate about the handicraft and work behind a product and a value we strongly want to communicate.

What is your sustainability profile?

Our goal is to work within sustainability through all the areas. We encourage conscious slow-shopping and producing on-demand to avoid overproduction. Working with mostly second hand and deadstock materials is reducing some ecological footprints, which also is a step towards a more circular economy. Socially our goal is to create more awareness about the people behind the products, it’s a well-known fact about the social issues connecting to the fashion industry and something we don’t want to support. The social aspect has a big role to play in why we still produce our products ourselves. Talking about these issues, and letting people into our workshop is a way to bring back the value of a seamstress handicraft and make people realize that it’s actually people behind each garment we wear.

How are the products produced and how do you pick your collaborations or other products you sell?

Each product is somehow produced in our studio in Åre, a Studio we share together with other artists and entrepreneurs. We have some selected retailers and our own shop with a few products, besides that we mainly work with on-demand orders. We’re letting the customer be apart of the design process, he or she can choose their own style of product, materials, and details and together we’ll put together a custom made hat. This is a great way of connecting to people and creating awareness about the industry and talk about why we choose to work this way. In some rare cases of small collections, we can work with newly produced products, in those cases we work with carefully selected Swedish producers with shared values.

We do a lot of collaboration and we choose them all after our values. Sometimes they themself have a strong foundation in sustainability and sometimes we are apart of their process of becoming more aware of their waste etc. Its a really fun way to help other brands to create projects with their waste and to show them that its possible to reduce waste and use circularity into the design process.

What has been and are the major challenges?

We’re a small brand, which gives us a really hard time trying to expand our production in a sustainable way. Our voice is really small when trying to affect suppliers and compete about the prices. That’s a big issue and an answer to why we still produce ourselves and we also need to source most of our materials ourselves as well. With our high standards within a sustainable production, it’s hard to find matching suppliers or producers for our type of need. This also slows down the process of finding profitability, we can for sure say that we have sacrificed a good economy for our values.

What has been and are the largest gains?

We’re proud of many things, never letting go of our values is definitely one thing. These ten years of running Stitch N Stones have been like a self-thought school in business and brand making, we’ve always made everything ourself and that is something we’re very proud of. Another thing is that we are actually starting to see that we are affecting our retailers and partners in a positive way, they are also moving towards more consciousness and we can now meet each other more in our collaborations then only a few years back. We have some big names on our collaboration list, like Löfbergs Lila, Stellar Equipment, Junior Alpine World Championships in Åre, and Åre Sessions, that is also quite astonishing due to our small scale production.

Even if we today still can’t make “big money” of our business we found proudness and passion to keep on going with Stitch N Stones in knowing that what we do is fashion that doesn’t harm people and the planet.

What do you think needs to change in the fashion industry to make it more sustainable?

A sustainable fashion industry is a wide and baffling subject. There are some really big and systematic changes that have to be done as well as down to all the details in communication, behavior, and taking care of your garments. We believe that the industry will support what we as consumers demand. Consumer power is underestimated and should be used more. Companies have to be more honest about their development and their imperfections, it’s too hard for the customer to make the right choices because it’s a jungle of “more sustainable” alternatives out there. If companies are more honest and transparent with their sustainability issues we might see that many companies share issues and it will be easier to develop the right strategies or techniques needed to create a more modern and sustainable industry.

What do you believe is “greenwashing” and what can producers and consumers do to avoid it?

Greenwashing for us is when brands communicate a more sustainable value then what the products really have. As mention earlier it’s too hard for the customer to make the right choices because of so many different kinds of labels of green choice, better choices, sustainable choice, or whatever. Even if a garment only includes a few percentages of recycled polyester it can be marked with a green label and a customer feels good about buying sustainable fashion. We don’t believe consumers today care so much so they actually see what this green label means. Consumers have to take more responsibility to find out what the information about the garment means, ask the brands, and find out!

It’s so tiresome to see the big brands trying to beautify their reality when so many small brands are showing that it’s actually possible to communicate sustainability in a better and more honest way. Companies should educate their customers instead of misleading them.

What would you advise consumers to do who seeks to create a sustainable closet and lifestyle?

Dig deep into second hand, check out traders or different second-hand apps when looking for a new item.
Ask your friends about tips and have cloth-swapping days together.
Stop impulse-shopping and take your time and really think about if you really need this new garment?
Start doing research and make it fun, find your new favorite brands making your style in a sustainable way.

INTERVIEW #10 STITCH N STONES

INTERVIEW #11 SANDQVIST

INTERVIEW #9 CORNELIA SUN