Grass Routes - Green Lifestyle Blog

Stockholm is becoming a meltingpot of hot, organic fashion and anticorporate blackspot. Thursday we went for a few hours eco-fashion hunting in Stockholm, in search for future Pamoyo selling shops and for general interest off course. First we visited Red & Fairy, a shop who opened their doors just five weeks ago. The clothes they sell are completely organic and fair trade. Red&Fairy prefer labels that produce fairtrade in the South. They sell clothes from two Swedish labels, Righteous Fashion and Dem Collective, and furthermore Kuyichi. A small but very nice shop, and we hope they will make it and grow!

Next stop was the Ekovaruhuset in old town Gamlastan, very well located between arts and crafts shops and chique fashion boutiques. The Ekovaruhuset, with a second store in New York, has a large offer of fashionable clothes, shoes, and accessories. On the one hand they sell fashion, on the other hand a selection of organic cleaning detergents, ethical living magazines and chique organic chocolates. Considering all the Christmas rush, the personal was very calm and spreading a peaceful atmosphere with a lot of attention and love in creating one-of-a-kind packages. One of the women in the shop said that the skepticism against ecological clothes had been hard, but that they now notice a change of attitude. They sell a selection of very wide range of cool, well known ethical fashion brands and local Swedish ethical designers like American Apparel, Anja Hynynen, Bergman Sweden, Birgitta Ericsson, Blackspot, Camilla Norrback, DEM Collective, Demin, Gossypium, Günay Kulbay, Howies, Johanna Hofring, Lovisa Burfitt och Stina Johnson, Kuyichi, Misericordia, Modiga barn, Nana Baah, Peau-Ethique, Pelle Backman, Loomstate, Steward&Brown, Solius, ThreeAsFour, Tor Söderin, Zion Clothing, Åsa och Taneale and Veja.

On our way to hipster area Söder we accidently passed Sarabia, the agency office of Kuyichi, Misericordia, Edun, and Steward & Brown. Unfortunately closed, but showing a nice location and good windows to look in through. Just afterwards we spotted Adbusters’ Blockspot sneakers in an ordinary, large Swedish fashion store, which made us believe that ethical fashion is really getting hot in Stockholm. As young people in Sweden generally are well dressed in style and seem to spend a little budget on fashion, there might be a good market for ethical fashion as well, with still quite a space to grow. Considering that the new cool Swedish ethical brands are focusing on the young generation in particular, with designer fashion like Camilla Norrback, and a range of smaller, upcoming labels, ethical fashion might in Sweden work best being style conscious. But as ecological and social awareness in Sweden is relatively progressive, it sounds logical that the ethical side will also market itself here upnorth, which is recently proved by the succesfull exhibition “Fair Fashion?” in Göteborg last autumn.

After all, the most ethical fashion is to be found in Söder, where lampposts and traffic signs are dressed in handmade knitwear. An original form of street art taking care of the freezing street furniture and the stubbornness of bypassers...