A DIFFERENT CUT TIGER OF SWEDEN
TIGER OF SWEDEN WAS
ESTABLISHED 1903
THEN REDEFINED
IN 1993 AND NOW WE ARE
EVOLVING
The Story of Tiger spans over more than a hundred years. It is a true tale, which occasionally sways between golden years and pitch black prospects, more than once pushed forward by brave people with innovative minds. They all practised what we call “A Different Cut” – an expression that goes beyond what you can accomplish with fabrics, scissors, threads and stitches. In our world, it’s a state of mind. It all began in a small town on the west coast of Sweden. Just over a hundred years later you can find us in stores spread over three continents, plus the ever growing digital world. And we are ready for more.
ESTABLISHED 1903
A DIFFERENT IDEA The Tiger of Sweden Story began in 1903. That’s when the entrepreneur Marcus Schwartzman and his partner Hjalmar Nordström founded Schwartzman & Nordström in Uddevalla, on Sweden’s west coast. Our company was born from a great idea. Schwartzman would simply turn the traditional working methods of the tailor upside down – we began to go to the customers instead of sitting in the shop and letting the people come to us as before. The customers got their suits faster and more easily than before without a reduction in quality. Business went swimmingly.
But entrepreneur Schwartzman wanted more than that. From his meetings with the customers, he understood that they would want to cut down on time-consuming trying on and individual fittings. Ready-made suits in top quality materials with a modern design and a perfect fit were exactly what the market wanted. The number of re-sellers kept growing, and during the first twenty-five years our company moved to larger facilities three times. One of our early suit models was named Tiger, and it became so popular that Schwartzman in a cocky mood had the sign “Tigerkläder” (“Tiger Clothing”) mounted on the factory roof. In the company register, we were still called Schwartzman & Nordström, but from that day on nobody ever called us anything but Tiger. In 1939, we were about to move a fourth time. A completely new factory had been designed, but it was immediately put in moth balls when it was learned that the Second World War had broken out. Rather than slowing down, Schwartzman reoriented production and we began to sew for the Swedish army. It turned out that “A Different Cut” could also apply in this world; well-fitting uniforms were good business. Unlike all of the Swedish companies and people who led a meagre existence during the war, our finances were good and we could start our own kindergarten and a boarding house for our employees. At Christmas, 1944, we were able to give our staff an extra week’s salary as a Christmas present.
When peace came in 1945, we could immediately begin construction of the big, new factory. As usual, Schwartzman threw Swedish caution to the winds and took inspiration from the most innovative ideas in the outside world. The factory would be one of europe’s most modern, as it was founded on the concept that happy workers do a better job. Our new factory had air conditioning, a music system, club room, bakery shop, staff laundry room, electrically heated sauna and its own swimming pool. In 1955, Marcus Schwartzman died and his son, Robert, took over. At the same time, the market began to change. We encountered competition from Finland, Portugal and other countries that produced cheaper clothes. Within a few years, we were in the midst of the great Swedish textile crisis. Then Tiger suffered yet another hard blow: Robert Schwartzman died in a car accident and we were suddenly without a leader. At the same time, like all suit manufacturers, we were under pressure from the changing tastes of the consumers. The 68 Generation sported in every kind of look but suits. Our recently so powerful Tiger was now as weak as many other Swedish textile companies and met the same fate: The company was sold. The new owner, the Swedish government, viewed the purchase as the only way to stop the runaway crisis in the Swedish textile industry and save jobs.
“OUR NEW FACTORY HAD AIR CONDITIONING, A MUSIC SYSTEM, CLUB ROOM, BAKERY SHOP, STAFF LAUNDRY ROOM, ELECTRICALLY HEATED SAUNA AND ITS OWN SWIMMING POOL.”
The new owner decided that Tiger would enter into the international market, and we were forbidden to market ourselves in Sweden, which was reserved for suits from other brands. Quite soon, Tiger became a popular brand in the British market, and we formed ties with Marks & Spencer, among others, as re-sellers. More than forty years later, Tiger is still remembered as one of the important brands among the fashion-obsessed British mods. At the same time, we opened an office in the U.S.A. The choice of address was anything but a sign of poor self-confidence: the Empire State Building. From there, we controlled the development of a new hit. Tiger had come across the Swiss manufacturer Bleiche, who had a very fine gabardine fabric in its range. The properties of gabardine makes it much more difficult to make suits of than traditional fabrics, but back home in our own Tiger factory we still had world-class know-how. For a master in fitting, an intractable material poses no problem. In a short time we were selling 70,000 gabardine suits a year in the U.S. Our exile had turned into a stroke of luck.
In 1983, our CEO and production manager took the opportunity to buy out the company from the Swedish government. Tiger was again privately owned. Successes in the U.S. continued, but when the gabardine trend lost impetus business slowly declined. In 1987, we were forced to close the Manhattan office. Since we were now privately owned and could choose our market ourselves, we where soon picking up speed with the growing yuppie era’s demand for suits. The joy was short-lived, and when the economic downturn and the bank and real estate-crisis put paid to the yuppie, Tiger had already been sold. Our new owners were Tiger Brason, a small company with only four employees.
REDEFINED 1993
A DIFFERENT MANIFEST At the beginning of the 1990’s, the market for suits had been cut in half. The government had lost its grip on the company and the wreckage had been taken over by a new ownership group. Activities were moved from Uddevalla and what remained was controlled from an office housed in a barrack in an even smaller west Swedish town – Alingsås. There, CEO Roger Tjernberg and designer Leif Menfors were summing up the situation together with the three part-owners. They felt like they had landed in Siberia. At this time, both music and fashion were strongly influenced by the vibrations from Seattle; the ideals were rough and dressed-down. They decided that in pragmatic terms there were only two possible ways to go. Tiger could either shut down and disappear, missed by hardly anyone. Or we could go in for a new start – an incarnation of “A Different Cut”.
“TAKING THE SUIT OUT OF THE BANK ONTO THE STREET”
The manifesto was simple. Our new management simply used the way they themselves wanted to look as a starting point, and the ideal was closer to “Reservoir Dogs” than Kurt Cobain. All jackets would be able to be worn without a tie and work with jeans. Our suits would be so comfortable that you might forget to take them off before you fell asleep at night. We were going to take the suit out of the bank and onto the street. The first collection was clearly inspired by the mod period of the Sixties; with slim silhouettes, narrow lapels and a completely new fit – far from the corny image that made wearers of suits look like old men, no matter their age. Trousers from Tiger of Sweden had a low waist and a cut that had been secretly hijacked from one of the biggest icons of the world of jeans. During a meeting with one of the old re-sellers, our CEO was told that there was nothing at all wrong with the old models, but that the brand name had to be changed to “something Italian”. Nonsense, we thought, and instead followed our own intuition, and did the opposite. Everything but the name Tiger of Sweden and the first class materials was replaced – and now it was time to find new re-sellers. Instead of going back to the traditional suit shops, the new Tiger of Sweden would collaborate with the best jeans-oriented shops where the curious public was. Tiger of Sweden’s new collection was fantastically well received. It wasn’t long before our suits were worn by artists, authors, rock bands and pioneering media personalities. In Alingsås the entire company, including the management group, packed clothes day and night to be able to deliver all of the orders on time.
Our almost one hundred year old brand was suddenly the hippest one in Sweden. We had succeeded in creating “The 24/7 Suit” – clothes that worked from the time you went to work in the morning until you left the last bar to go home and sleep. During the following years, developments followed the same course. In 1995, the artist and director Johan Renck was named Sweden’s Best Dressed Man and when asked what his favourite brand was his reply was “Tiger”. Paul Smith also saw that we were headed the right way. One evening in Como, Roger Tjernberg was advised by Sir Paul to continue along the same path: “You shouldn’t fool around with strange patterns and colours. Stay with the classic fabrics and keep creating modern fits.” Two years later, in 1997, we launched Tiger of Sweden’s first women’s collection. A collection based on our already given and successful concept. During the 1990’s, our collaboration with the very best fabric suppliers developed into a new kind of deeper relationship. Weavers such as Cerruti, Luigi Botto, Loro Piana, Limonta, Vitale Barberis Canonico and others had long been suppliers to us, but now a dialogue was developed where they were as interested in our sense of the present as we were of their deep knowledge.
EVOLVING 2016
A DIFFERENT FUTURE In short time, Tiger of Sweden had become a very much bigger company and a symbol of Scandinavian minimalist fashion. For a long period, the rate of growth was 30 percent per year. As if that weren’t enough, we also took on the challenge of creating a jeans brand – but how do you renew such a traditional garment? The solution was inside us. We simply took on the task in the same way we do with the suits – a garment that has really more or less functioned as a civilian uniform since the middle of the 19 th century and should therefore be even more difficult to renew than jeans. With total creative freedom, the country’s foremost designers were given the task of creating a jeans collection based on the philosophy “A Different Cut”. The result was Tiger of Sweden Jeans, a contemporary jeans collection that breathed the same sharp Scandinavian attitude as our men’s and women’s collections.
THE24/7SUIT
At just about the same time, we opened our first Tiger of Sweden shop outside of Sweden. The choice fell on Floral Street in Covent Garden, London. Shortly after this followed shops in Oslo and Copenhagen – and a completely new head office in Norrlandsgatan in Stockholm. Now we needed not just more muscle, but above all better logistics. With a new, forceful owner behind us, a process of change began that ended in an alternation of generations when Roger Tjernberg in 2008, just before his 50th birthday, handed over the role of CEO to the 31-year old export manager David Thunmarker. The same year it was time to again move the main office to larger premises in Torsgatan in Stockholm. Did Tiger of Sweden, after more than one hundred years, have the big challenges behind them? Not at all. In the 1990’s, our challenge was to take the suit out of the bank and onto the street. We were now poised to take our well-tailored fashion from the streets of Scandinavia out into the world. David had worked side by side with Roger for many years and already had “A Different Cut” in his veins. He knew that we had every reason to be proud; Tiger of Sweden had achieved a fantastic position in the Nordic countries. At the same time, he knew that no more than just over 25 million people live here. David’s and the company’s challenge was twofold – to develop our presence in the strong domestic market and at the same time lay the foundation for international expansion.
Work is in full progress. Today we have Tiger of Sweden shops in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Germany, Canada and South Africa, our own web shop and a total of 1,200 re-sellers spread over 18 countries in three of the world’s six continents. At the same time, our clothes continue to attract strong personalities. We have many joint efforts with both profiles and world stars – Swedish Mando Diao and The Hives can be said to belong to both categories. In the international arena, Tiger of Sweden is associated with its own on-target look – minimalistic, with a modern cut – “affordable luxury” in its purest form. But the international fashion scene presents completely new challenges, which is exactly what drives us. Breaking into a new market where we have no history makes us re-think things. Tiger of Sweden was born with innovation and curiosity woven into its DNA spiral. This is our greatest strength, something we will never give up. But it places enormous demands – not just on the products and our brand but also on us as a company; our organisation and our processes must continually develop at the same rate as our ambitions. In this context, “A Different Cut” is more important than ever before. Every day, we will wake up and create a new interpretation of well-tailored Scandinavian fashion with a character of its own. We plan on doing that for at least another 100 years.
“IT’S MORE THAN A HUNDRED YEARS SINCE WE STARTED AND THE STORY OF TIGER OF SWEDEN HAS JUST BEGUN”