Camilla Norrback

Is there a difference between Swedish and Danish style?

Here, I think you just bunch it altogether as Scandinavian style, but there is a slight difference between the nations. Swedish style is … we always say that the Swedes are very black, and quite graphical in a way. The Danish are romantic in their style, and the Fins are quite, well of course, you know Marimekko—they have these large prints, very kind of 60’s.

You were born in Finland, but you now live in Stockholm so where do your designs fall in all of this?

I'm somewhere in between all this, I think, but I'm quite black also. It's heavy in a way, but compared to my Swedish colleagues, I think that people would say that I'm a little bit lighter, not so dark. My spring/summer 2008 collection is dark, but there's also a lighter segment, so it's a mixture.

Does history often play a role in your designs?

I think so. I'm really nostalgic, even towards my own childhood and memories. It's probably some mid-life crisis or something, but it's something that haunts me sometimes, that I want to look backwards. Really, I want to push for the future, and I'm really thrilled about going forward.

Can you tell us about your collection for Spring/Summer 2008?

The name of the collection is ’33.5’, and that's where I'm at right now in life. It's very much inspired by the young, careless life meeting the adult life—being young and careless and also coming up in age and taking responsibility. So there's a lot of old patterns that I found, there are a few pieces that are actually from when I was seventeen or eighteen years old, that I wanted to do again.

How have you felt about it?

It has been really good, we started already in July, showing at Berlin Fashion week, so it has been a long trip for me. And since then we've done the Stockholm Fashion week with a fashion show and a lot of appointments, and now I'm here in New York and it has been a really great response. It's great to be here, just being able to meet everybody and talk about the collection.

How would you describe your design philosophy?

Camilla Norrback is all about making clothes that are beautiful and comfortable; also, I'm into organic thinking and it's something that I have built my whole company around. To strive to do things that are respectful to the wearer, to nature and to the people that I work with. I think this also is seen in the style, and in the way that the collections present themselves. I don't want it to be too expensive, because I want regular women to be able to afford the pieces, to be able to afford buying organic cotton blouses instead of something cheap that's polyester.

What kind of woman wears Camilla Norrback?

The main group I think is the urban woman in her thirties, like me, that's the biggest group of customers. But I have really young girls coming to my shop in Stockholm, and also older women like my own mother in her fifties and even older than that. So that is something that I'm really proud of, and I want to continue that broad spectrum of people in the collection. It's that woman who is really conscious and loves clothing, and puts a lot of time into her looks, but it's also a woman who is political, and takes a stand when she buys Camilla Norrback because it's an organic dress.

What do you think about the trend of green fashion?

I think that it's so inspiring, and it's something that drives me to work with organic products, which is everything from organic cotton to organic wool to organic linen, as much as I can get. In my spring collection, there's eleven different kinds of fabrics or yarn or leather, out of these at least nine are fully organic. If I can't get something organic, it has to have a point. For my winter collection, there's a lot of coats in Harris Tweed, and Harris Tweed is hand-woven outside Scotland. It's quite amazing, they do it by hand still. It's a one-hundred-year-old tradition, and it's 100% pure Shetland wool. All the fabric, all the yarns that I use in my collections, they have to have a meaning, it has to be organic or it has to have some kind of historical background or be fair trade.

We heard that you're doing a T-shirt for charity—which one?

Yes, I'm doing this T-shirt and the profit goes to an environmental project for the Baltic Sea. There is an organization in Finland, and they have devoted their time and effort to clean up the water that comes out from St. Petersburg in Russia.

Why do you think it took organic fashion so long to catch on?

I think because luxurious materials take time to manufacture, and it is expensive. When I started with organic fabrics in 2002, which was early on, it wasn't so hip and trendy and it was hard to get the message out. I really had a dip in 2004, and thought, 'No, I have to tone this down, I won't talk about this.' But then, in 2005, when I was doing the autumn collection for 2006, I started thinking about it, and my boyfriend and I came up with 'eco-luxury,' and I felt, 'Yes, this is what I'm doing, this is what it's all about.' Since then people have been responding so well, and everybody knows immediately what it's about, and it doesn't matter if it's Sweden, or Brazil, or the U.S. It's a really good way of getting the message out—you don't have to compromise, you can be fashionable, and you can also have a conscience and be aware of how you use nature and nature's resources.

Do you think it's just a fad that will go out of style?

No. If you look back at 1990, there was this eco-trend also, but it was beige, you had to look beige. We cannot move backwards, it's impossible. I think it's going to evolve. Especially food is coming so strong, and my industry, and the car industry are so important, so it's not going to go away.

Who are some of your favorite designers?

I love Chloe, I love Prada. I love those very romantic labels, I think because they're also very feminine.

What's your eco-sin?

My hairspray, which is a Revlon hair spray, but it's so lovely. But I'm always thinking that I should use something else.