CoutureCast

Read Lotta Stensson's Podcast Interview | All Podcast interviews are copyrighted and property of CoutureCandy.com 2007

CoutureCast: Fantastic Voyage

CC: Hello everybody, today’s CoutureCast is with Lotta Stenson, one of or favorite designers at Couturecandy.com. So how are you today Lotta?

LS: I’m good, thanks for calling.

CC: Good, it’s nice to talk to you. So I guess we want to talk to you today about what inspired your line, how you feel about designing clothing, your history, and general things about you. I’m sure everybody’s very interested to hear...

LS: I grew up in a home where all the women are in fashion design, my mom, my grandmother, so that was kind of my ......by defect, you know, it was a banana peel effect, I tried very hard to stay out of business, I studied acting, and than I wanted to go into more graphic design, but through helping my mom primarily growing up, it just became second nature, it felt very natural. I came to New York to work for my grandmother for 6 months and there, I fell in love with New York City. Having come from Sweden, it’s very different and of course New York was very exciting, so i decided to apply to FIT and got accepted. I went there for 2 years and then started working in the industry in New York City, for various designers such as Donna Kara and Jill Stewart, but my main gig was with a women named Bettina Riedel and gained a tremendous amount of experience from all these different women on different levels within the garment industry. When I was 26 years old I started my own collection out of my kitchen, in my New York City apartment, and what inspires me is primarily anything from ethnic cultures, you know, colorfur things.....

CC: Is this because you’ve been travelling a lot to these places...

LS: Yea, i’ve gone to a lot of places. Countries that inspired me the most were India, Asia...

CC: So colorful...

LS: you know Morrocco, Turkey, anything with a really yummy kind of ethnic vibe to it. Again, being Swedish I guess opposites attract, but i’m also very much into lines; lines are very important to me...What I mean with lines is where something hits on the body, the way it falls...

CC: Well your creations fit very, very well and we always notice that. All of us girls in the office, when we have some of your things for our photoshoots, we all try them on and they all fit very very well.

LS: Yea, we try, you know, you try your best. It’s hard; we’re all very different body types, but you have to try to find one happy middle ground and try to please as many female bodies as possible. That’s something that makes or breaks your company...

CC: Definently!

LS: We work very hard and we put a lot of money into having various different pattern makers that will ensure the best fit possible.

CC: It shows; you can tell. I have a design background too, so I can look at a lot of different garments from different designers and say, “well that obviously......somebody wasn’t paying attention when they put that dart there” or something, and I never, we never have problems with your merchandise, everytbody loves it; it’s very flattering and it’s easy to wear.

LS: Yea, and I think it helps being a women too, I’m always amazed with male designers designing for women. I can only put myself in the positon of having to design menswear, which would be fun, but to not be abe to try something on and really feel it and wear it and move in it...That would be really hard to relate to.

CC: I would think so too.

LS: Yeah.

CC: Definently. So when you were a child, when did you learn how to sew?

LS: Well, let’s see...I was old, I was maybe, like, 10 at the most?

CC: What kind of stuff did you like to make?

LS: I made clothes for barbies.

CC: Me too! My friends would be playing with Barbies and I would be dressing them up. You know?.. Little ropes for belts and stuff.

LS: Yea, and then I took pins, and made earings for the barbies.

CC: Oh my god, how great. Did you curt their hair too?

LS: No, I didn’t.

CC: Haha ,I never did either; I thought I was the only person. So then, so your grandmother was in New York...Had she been there? I mean, what brought you over from Sweden basically?

LS: Well basically I had finished my acting degree was a little bit lost and confused and probably realized it wasn’t my calling. Ultimately my mom suggested that I go over to New York to work for my grandmother as an intern to gain some more experience and just direction, and my mom actually met my father when she worked for my grandmother back in the 60’s and that’s how she met my dad, and she...You know my grandma is the most famous designer Sweden has ever had, and she’s a very very...

CC: Is that Kosha? from Sweden?

LS: Yea, Kotcha...?

CC: That must have been a really great experience then.

LS: Yea, that was amazing! And so that was good. So I came over, and she was given some award at FIT one night and that’s when I got my eyes up for FIT and said, “Wow, this is a really cool school, I want to go here.” From then on....

CC: and than how did you end up in California?

LS: You know I lived in New York for 12 years and it was, um... It’s an intense lifestyle, you know. You do everything to 200%: work, party, play, live, and after 12 years I just felt really tired and burned out.

I gew up in the countryside and I just...I thought I was going to live and die in New York; but guess that wasn’t the plan. One day I was walking down the street and someone just bumped me a little too hard and then didin’t apologize and I just went up to my loft and I was like, “Okay i’m done. I can’t do this anymore!”..just too many people...You have to be a millionaire to live somewhat of an okay life here and I just felt like I needed space, I needed nature, I needed ocean, I love the sun and I hate winter, so I jumped on an airplane the next Friday and found a house by the ocean in LA and pretty much went back to New York and folded up my business in the next 2 months, and moved...You know, drove a truck out to LA with my two cats and all my sewing machines...

CC: That’s great, that’s wonderful.

LS: Yeah!

CC: And then you have your boutique too...

LS: Yeah, we have a store on Melrose right by Fred Segel, Mui Mui, Costume Nationale, BCBG, Betsy Johnson, so it’s a cool little flagship area. There, we house the entire collection. ... the only free-standing store, and we wholesale too about... I think... 400 stores across the world. So it’s the one place where I get to kind of show how I would like to present my collection, because when the stores buy they buy a small percentage of the collection and the big picture, many times get’s lost, but this is really an avenue for me to get my point across... to cater directly to my consumer and meet them face to face. When I opened my store I actually worked there myself for about a year and...

CC: That was going to be my next question.

LS: Yeah, that really fueled and inspired my next run going foward. When I started wholesale again, and I just felt more aware of the consumer than I was before... and I reallly design with her in mind... it’s not about what I want, it’s about what she needs and what she wants and how much she can spend, and then we of course get celebrities, a lot in there, which generates a lot of press and a lot of buzz. That’s always good. We work very closely with a lot of stylists and celebrities, and that’s always fun. That’s kind of the gravy, you know?

CC: Yes! I was going to ask you too, Lotta! Do you remember the first time you saw a celebrity wearing your clothing or it came out in print? Do you remember that first time ?

LS: Yea, I do. I was still in New York and I was, maybe, in business for barely 2 years...I had been on vacation and I came back to my studio and the phone rang and I ran to pick up the phone and it was actually... Madonna’s stylist...

CC: Oh, Wow!

LS: ...calling from LA, and she was like, “Hey I’m Arianne Philip”, you know? “I work with Madonna and we’re right now, styling a completely new look for her. She’s going for a real Indian ethnic vibe, and I found your stuff in LA, in a store called Nice”, and, she was like, “ I would love to just pretty much use your stuff for Madonna’s upcoming tour”...

CC: That’s going straight to the top! (laughs).

LS: Yea! Well, she got the cover of Rolling Stone! Madonna on it; so that whole Indian era was pretty much all my stuff.

CC: That’s incredible!

LS: That really made my colllection take off.

CC: I’m sure it was an overnight sensation, even though you’ve already been laying the groundwork, but I can’t imagine! I remember when that whole thing came out and it just sparked an entire trend.

LS: Un huh.

CC: ...in that direction too...which must have been so good for you.

LS: Yea, all the way up until what, 2 months ago?

CC: It’s incredible. Then thinking of your store and the personality of it, and being able to be in a space that’s everything that you like....that really evokes the emotion of your clothing line. I also know that your going to start making a line of home accesories.

LS: Yes, we want to do home accesories down the line, definently. For right now, we actually branched into a maternity line. We just launched it this spring and it’s doing really well in the stores. The way that came about was not from me or any of my close friends, for that matter, being pregnant, um, you know... my customers who became pregnant would come back and just keep buying. They were like, “Oh my God! I can still be cute, I can still be sexy... I can wear it when i’m pregnant and then, when I’m not pregnant!”...So there were customers that got them in 9 colors, and that really sparked. Okay... you know my customer...she likes being feminine, cute, sexy, girly, all of these good things and she doesn’t want to look like a crazy lady just because she’s pregnant.

CC: Yeah, and the comfort of the best dress; oh my goodness, it’s incredible for anyone!

LS: Exactly! I mean, we do that for everything from.....you know Angelina wore it on the beach in Africa to.... we even do bridesmate’s parties, and then we do maternity. The dress has SO many customers, that it hit so weird. Were doing a maternity line so, that’s good and were coming out with a new line we’re starting a line called Peace, by Lotta Stenson.

CC: Oh, wonderful.

LS: It’s kind of a lower line. Right now the line retails from $129-$650. The peace line will be a little bit more affordable; it will retail from $49-$159, approximately.

CC: That’s great.

LS: So, it’s just a way to give the consumer a little bit more Lotta for a little bit less, and you know, just expanding on the brand, and then after that, it’s home and fragrance that we would love to go into. You know, little by little.

CC: Well it’s nice to have so many things to look foward to.

LS: Exactly.

CC: Then, this imay be a loaded question: What are some of the cornerstones that you think makes your line so succesful?

LS: I think the key is, when you put any product out there, it’s a couple of things: You have to really be your product to understand your product. You have to really know that there is a consumer out there that’s going to want it, to be able to afford it. Keepi it unique, and just always stay with what you believe is right and not tryi to look around and copy everything else. I think there’s too much merchandise out there that just looks like a copy of the next one...

CC: Absolutely.

LS: You have to have somehting unique and individual and something that the customer can feel special in, and not feel like she’s going to look like 10 other girls in the club that night...

CC: Right.

LS: So, it’s just being original and individual and believing in what you do, and not looking around too much and worrying about what everyone else is doing.

CC: In you collection,there are so many practical, wonderful pieces...Simple dresses that you could wear to work, or go to lunch in.

A lot of your line for me personally, is the clothing I like to wear on the weekands and when i’’m travelling; it’s that special. My favorite is the silk tie-dye 3-way dresses.

LS: That is my favorite too.

CC: Oh, Lotta!.. I put that on and I felt like I was in heaven! It’s so soft, flattering, and so wonderful! I want to wear that everyday and be on the beach in Tahiti everyday. That’s the way I feel in that dress.

LS: If I had to pick out my favorite piece that I love to wear, it is the tie-dye silk dresses. They just feel so amazing.

CC: It’s heaven.

LS: it’s heaven, yeah.

CC: I feel so comfortable in it, physically, but even more than that, it’s the confidence. It’s just so easy. You put it on; it’s glamorous. Nothing’s too tight, nothing’s, you know... it’s very flattering, I just love that dress.

LS: Yea, and really it hits home on a lot of bodies because you don’t have to be thin and 5’8, and just absolutely gorgeous, you just... you can be a little voluptous, you can be.. you can be pretty straight, no shape, whatever, that dress just takes so over and it just translates, you know?....making every women look very beautiful, and it just exudes who they are.

CC: That’s the other thing; we gave that dress to Gina Tolleson, the editor of Santa Barbara Magazine, she’s pregnant right now and the dress you sent, the tie-dye one in turquiose and brown, she loved it.!

LS: I love it and it wasn’t even maternity, it looked great!

CC: I know, I know. It looks great.

LS: Good.

CC: So, I’ve really enjoyed talking to you so much...

LS: Thank you; you guy have an awesome site.

CC: Thank you! I think it’s so fun that all of your customers, (even though they can read your biography on CouterCandy.com), can hear you hear you speak about the inspiration behind your line and it’s kind of a different medium. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.

LS: Thank you guys also for supporting the line, believing in us...

CC: Oh, we love it!

LS: We appreciate you guys.

CC: Thanks Lotta, and likewise.

LS: Hope you have a good weekand!

CC: Yea, you too, okay ,bye Lotta.

LS: Bye.

CC: Thanks.