Vagabond is a Swedish fashion company, dedicated to style and driven by unique knowledge of shoemaking. Founded in the late 60’s, Vagabond originally only produced men’s shoes. Today, Vagabond is both women and men and distributes great looking shoes and leather goods in more than 25 countries over the world. Marie Nilsson Peterzén is the Co-founder and Creative Director.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do. I am the creative director at Vagabond and my ambition is to inspire my team to create the Vagabond collections each new season. During the last 20 years my main mission has been to build the design department fully equipped to design and make shoe prototypes. Vagabond is my and my husband’s life’s work. We share the drive for fashion and learned from the best shoemakers in Italy before moving back home to Sweden to start building the company to what it is today. Along the road we are proud to have found many skilled and talented people who have shared our ideas about design and a great looking shoe.
What are some recent, upcoming or current projects you are working on? We’ve just finished our Spring/Summer 15 collection and started with Autumn/Winter 15. We are also launching our accessory line outside Scandinavia this coming season. We are also extending our premium collection for next Autumn/Winter.
Tell us about your work process and how it develops. I always allow a full open mind during a certain period of time when starting up a new collection. During that time it is important to not just focus on fashion scenes, but also films, music, architecture and what goes on in general in the world. After that building a collection means making sure we are innovative but also spot on the general development within fashion.
What’s your absolute favorite place in the city/the world to be? I love NY and I love Palma di Mallorca in Spain, except for home of course!
Describe your current studio or workspace. Our studio is unique because we have all the equipment we need to make full function shoe prototypes in-house, including lasts, uppers and outsoles. I have a team of designers, modelists and technicians. In total, we are 20 persons developing or collection.
Favorite article of clothing? Long black coats combined with plain low heel lace-up shoes.
Top 3 favorite or most visited websites and why? Style.com, Pinterest and Tumblr – for the instant feed of fashion.
What kinds of things are influencing your work right now? We loved the exhibition Kesh Angels by artist Hassan Hajjaj. Right now, we are also curious of our own archives! During the 80-90’s we made plenty of shoes that inspire us nowadays.
What designers are you interested in right now? Collections from the 80’s, such as Montana and YSL.
Who would you ideally like to collaborate with? Yoko Ono, no doubt.