We’re time-warping to 70s Sweden for the new collaboration between Tiger of Sweden and independent Stockholm-based culture publication Nuda. To a time of counterculture, folk, and sexual liberation. Titled Curious Monika, the collection is directly inspired by the plot of 70s Swedish adult movie Fäbodjäntan (Come and Blow the Horn), which tells of a group of friends gathered in the Swedish countryside during Midsommar who discover an old magic Viking horn which, when blown, makes everybody in ear sight extremely horny. The film is a cult classic within a seminal era of Swedish cinema known as Swedish Sin.

Fäbodjäntan, alongside the influence of Swedish 70s band Träd, Gräs & Stenar, who twisted traditional folk into something much more proggy and experimental, guides the Tiger of Sweden x Nuda collaboration. Blending notions of rebellion and refinement, folk and rock, familiar shapes are reimagined with sexy, ethereal, and punkish details. Cropped blazers are fastened with metal hook chains, leather tassels hang from bags, shoes and skirts, and heritage folk costumes are paired with distressed jeans and hoodies to create a contemporary vision of deconstruction and anti-establishment. We speak to Tiger of Sweden creative director Bryan Conway and Nuda co-founder Nora Arrhenius Hagdahl about their vision behind the collection.

Alex James Taylor: How did the collaboration first come about??
Bryan Conway: I’ve been friends with Nora and Frida for a while now and obviously I’m a huge fan of what they do with Nuda, so in a way doing something together was a natural thing, the exciting part was that it would be a full collection! It has been so much fun doing a collection as making clothes and garments is completely new for them, but at the same time making and thinking creatively isn’t at all, and that free and open vibe is what I think makes this collection so good.
Frida Vega Salomonsson: We’ve worked with Tiger of Sweden on various projects before and they’ve always been great supporters of our print publication. For a while, we were trying to figure out a bigger project to do together and finally landed on making a collection. We really just vibe together and it’s been really fun throughout. It’s our first time doing something like this and it’s been a great learning experience for a small business like ours. The team has given us a lot of trust and freedom during the whole process.

AJT: I’m really interested in the influence of Swedish adult film Fäbodjäntan, how did that filter onto the moodboard?
BC: Straight from Nuda! I am now very much aware of and a fan of Fäbodjäntan, but growing up in London, I had only a hazy awareness of all these progressive films from Sweden. It is really when I started to live here that the Swedish Sin cultural movement and the whole vibe of Midsommar was crystalised. Looking back and tapping into a retro image and dress is something we have been doing with Tiger of Sweden for the last few years now, so the inspiration works perfectly.
FVS: When starting the project, since it’s a collaboration with Tiger of Sweden, we thought about what kind of Swedish heritage we’re interested in exploring and how we would go about doing that in a way that’s not literal and boring. In Fäbodjäntan, they play with the idea of Swedishness in a very fun way, by tuning into the vibes that were going on at the time in Sweden, when prog musicians were both embracing and messing with tradition.

“it’s all about people getting insanely, uncontrollably horny when blowing some old magical horn”

The movie takes place in rural Dalarna during the magical times of Midsommar – all very cliché concepts, but then it’s all about people getting insanely, uncontrollably horny when blowing some old magical horn and the film is mostly about people having sex in this picturesque Swedish scenery. In Sweden, as in many other places, the idea of romanticising your heritage is not entirely unproblematic and what’s considered “Swedish” in terms of aesthetics today is merely a construct from the 19th century, created by artists like Anders Zorn and Carl Larsson, that in recent years has been heavily appropriated by the far right. What we tried to do with the collection was reference Swedish traditional dress and aesthetics from the angle of this iconic old porn flick. I think it just made everything more fun and sexy while at the same time accentuating how this whole thing with hot blondes in red cabins is a fetish construct in itself, made to create a Swedish national identity during the 19th century.

AJT: In general, the collection draws from 70s counterculture, what aspects of that are specific to Swedish culture and that fed into the collection?
BC: If Fäbodjäntan was the starting point for a mood and energy, Swedish folk costume was really the starting point from a garment point of view. It is the same approach as the 70s counterculture we looked at, to take these traditional forms and be completely irreverent with them. Taking things out of context and making a completely different world with tones from the past and tradition but otherwise something else entirely.
FVS: In Sweden, like everywhere in the 70s, people were looking at amping up traditional clothing in new ways. In other places, like hippie America, there were ponchos and kaftans, which they, of course, wore here too, but in Sweden people also took old folk costume and wore it in untraditional ways. To this day, traditionalists can become really angry if you misuse old Swedish costume, like if you wear them in untraditional ways or mix patterns or cuts from different regions. It became a way of saying “fuck tradition.” With the collection, we wanted to find cuts and elements from more traditional garments, like the necklines, hooks, aprons or strings. We made a pair of clogs, which together with “näbbstövlar” (a pair of boots) were the most popular shoes of the 70s, and we also went to Värmland to met with a weaver who makes traditional fabrics and we designed our own pattern which is used in the collection. This is also where Fäbodjäntan enters for us, not only blindly referencing the past but highlighting the very idea of looking back and how ideas of the past are formed from the present, that history in itself is a construct.

“What drew us to the movement was their reckless approach to heritage and their way of both embracing and fucking with tradition.”

AJT: Can you also tell us about using Träd, Gräs & Stenar as a reference?
FVS: Träd, Gräs & Stenar is just an example of a prog band that wore these clothes and were inspired by old folk music in the 70s. More than music, they’re an example of the time and the movement, maybe a more safe-for-work one than Fäbodjäntan. What drew us to the movement was their reckless approach to heritage and their way of both embracing and fucking with tradition.

AJT: There’s also an inherent romance in every Tiger of Sweden collection – how is this realised through material and technique here?
BC: There is definitely a romance in the current Tiger of Sweden collections. I think that will always be a product of looking back at heritage, taking historical or past elements and using them in a current context. We romanticise the past, focusing on the good parts and very easily forgetting the bad parts. I guess that is how we are wired, and I, of course, am as guilty as the next person. I think the key is what you then do with these elements: you don’t just leave them in hazy romance territory but develop and progress the idea to something that connects with people today. And if that is shorter shorts, then so be it…
FVS: We can’t speak for any other collection than ours, but I think this collection is quite different from what Tiger of Sweden normally does. We really wanted to build on Tiger of Sweden’s experience in tailoring while giving it a naughty little twist. I don’t know how many times we’ve asked Agnes (head of womenswear design) to make the shorts shorter and the blazers tighter.

Shop the collection here.