Welcome to the latest episode of our Podcast series "In Conversation" where we bring you inspiring stories, retail insights and conversation from fashion's most influential business leaders.
Founded out of Los Angeles by two Swedish branding experts, then based in London, with no experience in making product and inspired by French style icons of the 1970s, FRAME doesn’t appear to make any sense at all on paper. And yet, from the moment it arrived, the denim market was shaken up for good. And for the better.
10 years ago, at a time when it felt like the last thing the world needed was another denim brand, FRAME arrived with a minimalist design (indeed at the start it was just one pair of the perfect blue skinny jeans), pared back to the point of non-existent branding and chic black & white imagery. Suddenly all the brightly coloured, overtly-branded, highly embellished, ripped, patterned, distressed (you name it) denim on the market felt all wrong.
So how did they do it? Not even its Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer Erik Torstensson (who set up FRAME with his friend Jens Grede) says he really knows. But here’s the thing, Erik is a creative risk-taker with impeccable taste. He knows good product and he knows how to market it. He’s the kind of brand founder who instinctively knows what the market wants before the market knows it wants it.
Before launching Frame, Erik was a brand builder par excellence and worked with the likes of H&M at one end of the market to LVMH at the other. He is one of the best-connected individuals in fashion and often calls upon his friends in the industry and related markets to collaborate on projects for Frame, which has now grown into a fully-fledged ready to wear brand for both men and women. Denim, of course (and in particular that skinny jean), remains at its core.
In this episode of the In Conversation podcast Erik talks to Lauretta Roberts, Editor in chief of TheIndustry.fashion, about how the brand has always retained clean design as part of its DNA but is now intensely focused on clean manufacturing too having recently launched a new line of denim that uses virtually no water all in its manufacturing process.
Great customer experience is also key and, as well as maintaining and enviable wholesale channel, Frame has been developing its own stores (with two arriving in London this year) and a new online platform to present the full Frame vision.
Editor’s note: Before we start a word of warning, no matter how many pairs of jeans you already own (and my personal collection of Frame jeans extends well into double figures) by the end of this podcast, you will probably want to buy more. And yes, you can still buy skinnies, they’re not going anywhere.
Listen via Apple, Spotify and onsite.
In proud partnership with
Uniqlo supports Oxford Street's "once-in-generation transformation" with new store