Scan Magazine | Design Profile | Ernst Alexis
Ernst Alexis is one of Scandinavia’s largest producers of high-quality professional shirts. Photos: Patrik Hagborg
Four generations of passion for shirt making In a small village outside Borås, in the west of Sweden, brothers Johan and Thobias Pettersson have drawn on over a hundred years of tradition to create one of Scandinavia’s largest producers of high-quality professional shirts. By Liz Longden
‘We are shirt makers.’ It is fairly simple, as company mottos go. Certainly, no one could accuse Swedish tailors Ernst Alexis of over-complicating things. However, for CEO Johan Pettersson, it sums up his business perfectly. It is what they do. They craft shirts with an expertise that has been nurtured over four generations, and they are proud of it. The company takes its name from Pettersson’s great grandfather, born in 1891 and the first in the family to take 12 | Issue 112 | May 2018
up the scissors and measuring tape. His skills were passed down from father to son, and finally down to brothers Johan and Thobias, who founded Ernst Alexis in 2006 with the aim of producing highquality shirts for the service and sales industries. Since then, from their base in an old textile factory in the village of Aplared, near Borås, the company has grown and now offers one of Scandinavia’s largest in-warehouse range of shirts, with an annual turnover of over 30 million SEK (approximately 2.5 million GBP).
An invaluable inheritance For Johan Pettersson, the family legacy upon which Ernst Alexis is founded informs the company’s values and its philosophy that there can be no shortcuts in the pursuit of quality. But it is also about practical experience. “We have been working in high-quality tailoring for generations, and when you’re talking about choice of fabric and stitching and the whole process of constructing a shirt and creating new models and fits, that experience is very important.” It is that experience, he says, which teaches that there is no such thing as ‘just a shirt’ and it takes a master tailor to understand the myriad variations that can alter a shirt’s shape, fit, performance