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The first year and half was all learning – I had to work out how to get the clothes made, what kind of relationships we should have, what production we wanted, where to source the fabrics I love, and so on. Now I feel that we are heading in the right direction and I have a really clear vision. I don’t want to put a label on what we do or be on the fashion treadmill. I want to do it my way, very hands on, very close to our customers, intuitive, impulsive. In others word very me, very Caro. It is really important for me that I actually want to wear the clothes and I am proud of what we are selling.
That we are doing so many one of a kind pieces, I have my hands on all of them. I love to do all the small details, finding the right shapes, fabrics. I feel as if everything is much closer to us now, having all the fabrics in our hands before they go out to production, using a lot of deadstock and special small pieces of fabric.
I want people to have the clothes forever so they need to be really good quality. It starts with the fabric, the deadstock Chanel or Dries Van Noten, the Harris tweed. I have a lot of vintage clothes from the 1970s, when you have clothes for 50 years, you learn a lot about fabrics.
They probably see colours, playfulness. People probably recognise the embroidery style, a certain nostalgia, the borders in deadstock Chanel, little details like bows. I like it when people buy Caro clothes that they can imagine in their own wardrobe rather than wanting to be labelled a Caro girl or whatever. I want them to buy a piece of our world and put it into their own world. That is personal style. I love it when people who have personal style come in and shop my clothes, that is what makes me really proud.
For me it is removing all the fashion noise and coming straight to the point– what do I want to wear? What do I feel comfortable wearing and what do I see others wearing that looks great. Now I am a mother I perceive wearing clothes in a different way. When I design, I think of a lot of body shapes, not just stick-skinny. That’s what people recognise with Caro Editions, they feel comfortable in the shapes. I don’t like it when you have something on that doesn’t fit properly, it’s too tight and you can’t move.
The word comfortable has two meanings, how it fits and also how you feel in it. It could be something like a Gaia coat with xx embroidery, that is very distinctive so you stand out in it but feel at ease.
First of all, I design all the clothes, choose the fabrics and come up with lots of ideas, but I also really use my team to spar, debate every detail. Once the clothes are made, I am styling the shoots to show people how to wear them, and I take the photos. I do the Instagram (very impulsively) and if I can’t sleep at night, I am sometimes reordering the online shop into the right colour combinations. I want to have my hands on every aspect of how the outside world sees Caro.
I work from the heart, which is sometimes difficult for my team because everything is very intuitive. I have always worked like that. When I worked as a model there was never a strategy for my career or anything. That can be good or bad but I think it works for Caro Editions, with the right sort of team around me. That is the charm of Caro Editions, if I come up with an idea for a new jacket, we make it quite quickly and put it up for sale. There is always an element of surprise. When people come onto the website, they know there will be something new. And when it’s gone, it’s gone.
It brings a lot, it definitely gave me the confidence to have my own voice and to do things my way. To understand that when you are really burning for something you can push hard, for a show or a collection, or the most perfect one of a kind xx. Keep refining, refining, until you are totally happy with the piece. As a model I learned a lot from stylists, seeing how they put the clothes together, trying outfit after outfit. Karl Templer was really good with colours, making the outfits powerful and rich. He used to say that it needed to look expensive not in the sense of what it costs but impressive so that if you see someone coming in the door, you’re like, ‘oh that coat is beautiful’.
That’s what I want. When someone comes in wearing a Caro coat, people say, where is that crazy beautiful coat from? I always have this in mind when I get dressed to go out, I like to layer it on, almost like being over the top, but get the perfect balance between being like wow and xx
I want us to grow, slowly and carefully, and get better and better. The energy we have right now comes from pushing ourselves all the time, you can feel this in the clothes. It is intense. This is not a hobby, I want it to be something, I want it to last forever. We love our shop and atelier in Copenhagen and being a part of that local community but we also want to go out in the world, in a natural way.
I want it to be a really great place to come and visit, where you can get a very good idea of what Caro is about. Where you can experience the clothes in real life, because there is so much in the detail, in the small things, even something like the opening on the Coco pants, or seeing the embroideries up close. You get a much clearer idea of who we are and where we’re going.
The space is more than a shop, it is our home, it is where everything happens, where we make the collections and all the one of a kind pieces, where we shoot the photos inside and outside on the street or in the courtyard. I love the idea that we have everything we need right here and can share that with people. We actually took over the space from our friend Bibi Maj Husted Werner, it had a soul, that we got a lot from and then made it our own.
We do two tight collections a year but increasingly focus on pieces that we just drop. I love the idea that whenever something is ready, it drops. People can always be surprised or excited. Quite often there is only one of each piece, or small quantities, maybe five or six. I want to feel this vintage vibe, that you get something which no one else has and you can have it for a long time.
Right now, we are planning a six month service with one of a kind where you can come in and we will repair them for you, says the stones fall off, we will sew on another one. I want people to wear them and not be scared that the stones will fall off. I love the idea of coming closer to the client, as well as making the clothes to get a chance to talk to the people about the clothes. We do a custom service where people can come in and select fabrics and combinations say for a x jacket. I won’t make something I don’t like but they get what they want in my vision.
