Eureka: Swedish denim special, part two: COF Studio

0:15You're listening to Eureka on Monocle Radio, brought to you by the team behind the entrepreneurs, the show all about inspiring people, innovative companies and fresh ideas in global business. I'm Tom Edwards. Pair Fredrickson is the founder of premium selvedge denim specialist COF Studio, also an online and retail store out of Stockholm, Sweden, that's expanded from denim into the wider apparel space. The brand is the culmination of Pair's decades working with denim. And the COF, or Circle of Friends, alluded to in the business's name, Well, as Pair explains, it speaks to the tight-knit and committed group of suppliers, from fabric mills to thread and button manufacturers, who contribute to this unique concern.

0:57So, how do you build for growth and ambition while keeping things so friendly? And how does a smaller, more niche producer outmanoeuvre the big players in the space? Well, here is Pair with more on how the journey began. I started because I was a lot in America and 15 years ago when a lot of American brands come up made in United States. I like that part and then I was scratching my head. How can I do this but to do made in Europe? So I contacted some mills because I used to live in Italy for 18 years. So I contacted the Denimil Candiani Denim and talked with the owner, Alberto Candiani. And I present my ID.

1:42I would like to do something related only to Europe. And then he said, Per, how come you from Sweden called me? Why no Italians called me about this? And then he said, of course, I would like to do that. I like your ID. So that's how he and I was agreed. Then I had to find a proper name. And then I was talking with a friend, his daughter come up, why don't you call it Circle of Friends? And then I was like, oh, it sounds really, really good to use Circle of Friends. And then when I presented further, everyone liked it. So that's how everything started. From the beginning, I had an idea to do, since I started with the denim, the wider width fabrics should be Circle of Friends because it's more price friendly.

2:31And COF Studio should be more the heritage with selvedge denim and everything made in the old way of denim manufacturing. But everyone bought the selvedge part of the collection. So that's why we took off with COF Studio. And then we dropped Circle of Friends as a trademark. But we use it in our products because we explain in all our jeans the Circle of Friends of this product. So we mentioned the fabric mill, the thread supplier, the buttons, the rivets. People can find out every supplier on our pocket lining. And then we keep it tight. So I have almost not changed any supplier since the brand start because that was the idea to really work.

3:17Even if other people contact me now. And then I said, but you are not in the circle of friends. And so that's why I will not pick fabric from you, for example, or accessories or whatever. So that was the start of everything.

3:34I got the opportunity when I started to work for people who had manufacturing in Sweden and Finland, actually. But they shut down one after another in the beginning of the 80s. And then I get the opportunity to work for, at that time, I think it was the second biggest company of Scandinavia in the denim field called Dobber. And they bought 100 % of the fabrics in Japan and did the manufacturing those days in Singapore and Hong Kong, where you don't produce today. But this time, because the owner of Dubber, he fined Japanese denim in 1974 and said, because everyone were into America in the 70s.

4:20But he started to do a brand and bought all the fabrics in Japan. And what I know when I started, we were the only ones from Europe those days who actually bought fabric from Japan. So that became almost my school because I spent 100 days every year over there with a technician guy, also from Sweden, to develop the fabrics and everything. So that's how I got in. And I was just 23 at that time. So I had four fantastic years to work with fabrics, with Japanese mills and garment making in other parts of Asia those days. and then I resigned 1981 and went to Italy instead to work. I liked Italy a lot so I moved there and then I spent 18 years in Italy outside Florence as my base working all over the world of course still but that's the background I would say.

5:18But then I start 2016 you can say we had the first COF collection in the market.

5:27With COF, first of all, I want to wear clothes in the market. So let's say we take majority, I would say, 85 % of our fabrics from Italy. And we do the garment making in Portugal. That means we don't need to push our retailers for too big commitments in pre-ordering. but we can do speed to market deliveries. For all the orders we get on pre-orders, I will double the quantity so you can refill in the season. So you should have your products, depends from where you come, of course. America is maybe five days but here in Europe is mainly two to three days. You have replenishment. So that's the way I want to supply the market and see a gap because the big players in our segment, they ask for so big pre-orders.

6:27They push the retailers. If you don't buy, for example, 10 ,000 euro, you cannot buy our brand. And a lot of retailers, they are not strong enough to say, okay, then I go to another brand. So that's why I think a lot of those retailers have financial problems today. The brands have actually pushed them to the limit what they manage. I want to do the other way around, to take a pre-order and then do the replenishment. And since I work so close with the mills, I can easily, within a week or two, have a new order of fabrics or whatever. And then I need only 20, 25 days for stitching and washing so I can reproduce much, much quicker, of course, than the big guys.

7:11That's where I feel is the opening in the market for a small brand like us. I have one store. It's not called COF Studio, though. It's Circle of Friends, based in Malmö. We have different brands. We have shoes inside. So one of our best partners is Paraboot Shoes, actually. But we also have other. We have Jackman, a Japanese brand, and some other brands together with our own. Probably we will expand Circle of Friends if the opportunities come with the retail store in Copenhagen, for example. probably the next step or in Stockholm. We try in one area in Stockholm, but the location was too small.

7:54So we couldn't really come out with our collection. But the main target is independent retailers and online business. So, so far we have never approached department stores because I think in every cities today, you can find one or two really good independent retailers. And my feeling is I think consumers, when we talk about sustainability and all this, I think to buy a quality product where you get the service is from smaller independent stores. So I'm not keen on department store. We have never approached them and they have never approached me because I'm not after big volumes. It's more a stable business.

8:39And then you put your overhead costs so you can stay healthy in that market. So I don't need to be a multi-billion brand. That's not ambition at all. It's to have a good, healthy brand with my supply chain. Of course, I would love to work in Japan and I love the Japanese fashion culture. but it hasn't been time really to try to get into the Japanese market or other Korea or China, which is also an interesting market today, China, Hong Kong. We just started showroom in Paris. So this was the first season now in January when he presented the collection. And it takes time with today's market situation in Europe, of course.

9:25But I see online that we have a lot of consumers from France. So I think there is a potential in the French market, as the same in the Netherlands.

9:40I don't think denim in the future will be typical denim brands. It can be a casual brand to have good denim. Yeah, the consumer groups are more different than when I grew up. It's more individual today. So we have to go that direction. I mean, today the consumers dictate what we should do. Before, brands and retailers dictate what the consumer should buy. But today I think we have to listen to what the consumer market requests and creates because it's come from the street today, not from designers or companies.

10:18That was Per Fredriksson, the founder of COF Studio. and you can learn more by heading to cofstudio.com and also check out the full offering of Studio Denim and many more brands by heading to circleoffriendsshop.com. And that's all for this episode of Eureka. We'll be back at the same time next week. The programme was produced by Laura Kramer with audio editing by Jack Dewars. Listen again and find out more at monocle.com or if you'd like to get in touch with the team, email Laura on lrk at monocle.com. I'm Tom Edwards, goodbye and thanks for listening to Eureka