By Pablo Donas and Johanne Wang Corneliussen
The countries of Scandinavia are home to several Swedish, Danish and Norwegian designers who are very popular amongst citizens in London – but Brexit could wreck this relationship.
Danish store owner Caroline van Luthje opened London’s first Scandinavian-designers-only style store The Wild Swans 15 years ago, but now fears that Brexit might have a big impact on future imports of Scandinavian designed and manufactured items.
“After living in London for 10 years, having to travel home to Copenhagen to get my Scandinavian brands, I was desperate to bring the minimalism and high quality of Scandinavian designers to the UK. I therefore opened my first shop in Chiswick 15 years ago, before I opened the one in Islington a year later,” store owner Caroline said.
“When I started my business, people didn’t know very much about Scandinavian fashion brands, and mostly associated Scandinavian design and style with furniture and interior design,” she added.
Caroline states that compared with Britain, the Scandinavian style is very different, meaning that Scandinavian women dress for themselves, and do not care about men’s opinion towards what they wear.
“What I think is most essential about Scandinavian style is that the women dress very practically, seeing that they bike a lot, yet are still sexy and very fashionable. It is a sense of minimalism combined with layering and mixing of patterns, meeting an unstable weather and an active everyday life.”
According to a report published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark on March 27th 2015, Danish exports of fashion increased from £109.7 million in 2010 to £153.5 million in 2015. But as unpredictable as the future of Brexit, is the effect Brexit will have on imports of Scandinavian items to the UK.
The store-owner says that it is completely uncertain how it might affect the store and import of Scandinavian design items, but she fears higher retail taxes and having to increase the price of her items.
“Except from some tea and interior items, everything in the stores are imported from Scandinavian countries. It was the Scandinavian sense of practical, yet sexy clothing I wanted to introduce to the city, so it is important for me that I will be able to continue doing that even after Brexit.
“I mainly worry that it might take longer to import items from Scandinavia and to the UK after Brexit, so I really hope I will be able to reach a deal with the manufacturers on both prices and delivery times.”
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