Mardou & Dean – Hottest design couple in Scandinavia

Through the reception window at Clarion Collection Hotel, I see them walking up the old Opera passage way. And they look stunning, dressed from top to toe in their own design.

Meet Norwegian Ingrid Bredholt (26) and Swedish Patrik Rosenfors (32).

This is the duo that managed to sell their first pair of jeans by walking in to Steen & Strøm and ask them if they want to buy their jeans, getting Kaare Lund as their Agent, winning the prestigious fashion award Nåløyet, and getting entry to the luxury lifestyle store Harvey Nichols in London.

Ingrid has a background from Fashion Design at Marangoni in Italy, and surprisingly Patrick has a background from economics and medicine. Not quite related to fashion. But what he lacks in fashion education, he gains in passion for jeans.

The jeans see the first light of day
The conceptual idea behind the brand started in 2006, where they focused on brand building and defining the concept. Then they produced their first set of jeans in the spring of 2007. It consisted of 100 jeans, two women models, two male models and one hundred copies.

Steen & Strøm was your first customer. How did you manage that?

Ingrid: Well, we grabbed our four models, walked over to Steen & Strøm and asked if they wanted to buy our jeans. And they bought most of them.

Wow!

Ingrid: Yeah, most people don’t have the guts to walk into the store to present themselves and their products. But saying that, in order to do so you must have good packaging. Don’t believe that your products will sell itself. Because they don’t.

What is Mardou & Dean?

Ingrid and Patrik: Mardou & Dean is inspired by the Beatnik culture and literature. It represents the couple, be it friends or lovers, which live their lives free from strict rules. The names where inspired by the book written by Jack Kerouac, where these characters were free thinking, free spirited people with an interest in art, poetry and music.

Why did you choose to produce your clothes in Italy?

Ingrid: I studied industry design in Italy where I also learned the language. Therefore it was a natural choice to start looking here. Also it’s a very short travel distance from Norway, allowing us to come over and oversee the production more frequently.

Patrik: And Italy is one of the best countries in the world for small companies like us, because they don’t need large orders like larger factories in for example China.

How big are you?

Patrik: This year we are looking at earning 2,8 million kroner. We have stores in Italy, New York, Norway, and coming autumn we will be in place in London at Harvey Nichols.

That’s quite a feat. How did you manage to get entry to Harvey Nichols?

Patrik: We have a very good agent in London, and I think the guys at Harvey Nichols really like what we do. We are the only new jeans brand that gets entry to Harvey Nichols. And that means a lot to us.

Last year you won the prestigious Nåløyet award. How has that affected you?

Ingrid: Winning that price and getting all that feedback really strengthen our motivation.

Patrik: And we saw a tremendous boost in sales.

And you also won consulting hours with PR Agency worth 100.000 kroner.

Patrik: They where a great help in the time after winning the price. We got a lot of attention then and we needed help in dealing with all the publicity.

What is the best PR that you can get?

Ingrid and Patrik: Getting A-list celebrities is always a good thing. But product placement and having people write articles about your products is also extremely important. An issue we faced was that the papers didn’t want to write about us, because we didn’t have the products in any stores. And the stores didn’t want to have our products because no one was writing about us.

Where are you in two years?

Patrik: In two years we have your own brand store and a complete wardrobe collection.

That’s cool! And where is this brand store?

Patrik: It will be here in Oslo, because this is our home base.
Ingrid: (looks doubtful)
Patrik: Well, it’s expensive here. Having a good location like Bogstadveien costs a lot of money.

Looking back at when you first started and where you are now, how has that been for you?

Patrik: It has definitely been process which we have had to adapt to. When we first started, it was our little thing. Now we have two employees working on producing the prototypes, we have agents in different countries, the production in Italy and managing sales outside Norway.
With very little experience from the fashion industry, what where you biggest mistakes when you first started?

Ingrid: Our biggest mistake was spending to much money on producing out first collection, rather than first create prototypes.

When will we see you collection on the catwalk?

Patrik: Up till now we’ve only had jeans, and that can be a bit boring on the runway. So we are waiting till we have a more commercial line to show. If not this autumn, we will definitely have something ready for spring.

So we will see you on the runway in February?

Ingrid and Patrik: Oh yes!

Pictures from the opening show at OFW February 2010 (Group show)

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Foto: Steven Stieng