Axel Arigato Interprets English Luxury With Mulberry Collaboration – WWD

LONDON — Cult luxury meets cult streetwear. 

Swedish sneaker brand Axel Arigato has partnered with British luxury brand Mulberry on a capsule collection that reimagines the codes of leather goods with a contemporary take.

Mulberry has been firm in returning the health of the brand back to its glory days.

In November, the Mulberry group saw sales in the U.K., its number-one market, fall 10 percent in the first half, while business in China was up 6 percent despite lockdown restrictions in the region.

Overall, group revenue was broadly flat in the six months to Oct. 1, dipping 1 percent to 64.9 million pounds.

Its partnership with Axel Arigato could take Mulberry into untapped markets: Gen Z, Millennials and sneakerheads.

“This collaboration with Axel Arigato champions both brands’ shared values of community and engagement with contemporary culture. It will be brought to life at the events our brands are co-hosting in London and NK Stockholm [the name of the department stores located in Stockholm and Gothenburg], bringing together our communities in an engaging way, and celebrating our affinity to music. Collaboration allows us to reach new and diverse audiences,” Thierry Andretta, chief executive officer of Mulberry, said in an email.

The discussion started between Mulberry’s chief commercial officer Ian Earnshaw and Albin Johansson, cofounder of Axel Arigato with Max Svärdh, who’s also the creative director of the brand.

“We came to the conclusion that it was an unexpected pairing and I’m always interested in surprises,” Svärdh told WWD.

“We haven’t been around for that long. Next year it’s going to be 10 years of our brand and we grew up with Mulberry products in Sweden, so they have a lot of history,” he added.

The starting point for Svärdh to dive into the world of Mulberry was unorthodox — he didn’t visit the brand’s manufacturing headquarters in Somerset, England, but instead went on a deep Google search.

“That’s the modern way of an archive,” he said half-jokingly. 

Mulberry’s Bayswater bag from 2003, a large style with a downward flap and versatile side gussets, served as the muse for Svärdh, basing a majority of the collection’s design vocabulary on the bag.

Svärdh has blown up the Bayswater into a large scale with croc embossed leather, a bigger handle and a length that measures in at 55 centimeters. At the same time, they’ve produced three mini versions in a turquoise and green colorway. The bags also come with additional charms such as a love heart and mirror which are the entry point products sold separately at 95 pounds.

The bags are priced between 895 and 1,950 pounds. Andretta said the pricing was in line with Mulberry’s current collections and it reflects the brand’s commitment to “crafting quality products that are made to last.”

Mulberry produced and took the lead in pricing for bags, jewelry, belts and key rings; meanwhile, Axel Arigato took charge of footwear and ready-to-wear.

The bags were made at Mulberry’s carbon-neutral Somerset factories with environmentally accredited leather.

“It’s a weekend bag all of a sudden and we really wanted to make a statement with it,” said Svärdh.

The other bag he toyed with was a small vintage shoulder style with leather trims and antiqued brass hardware that’s been transformed into a smooth black leather version with a gold buckle closure in the middle.

Svärdh sent references of the bags and in turn Mulberry found them in the archives and shipped it to him, with the exception of one bag that he found on eBay.

The signature postman’s lock on the Mulberry bags has been added to the tongue of the sneakers, used as buttons for the jackets and coats, as well as a decorative touch to the hoodies.

The apparel is a big part of the collaboration that Svärdh spearheaded — incorporating the Mulberry tree logo designed by the brand’s founder Roger Saul’s sister Rosemary.

The tree is printed onto Ts, denim jeans, trench coats and varsity jackets.

Axel Arigato ventured into apparel in 2017 with a six-piece menswear capsule after seeing shop floor feedback. The company enlisted the help of Jens Werner, its head of ready-to-wear, previously former creative director at J.Lindberg.

The brand secured a $7.5 million investment from the specialist fund Vaultier7 in 2018. At the time, Svärdh revealed that the money will also be used to ramp up the clothing and accessories offerings, as well as physical and online retail expansions.

The collection will be sold online on both parties’ websites, as well as in their brick-and-mortar locations.

Axel Arigato’s biggest market to date is still the U.K. within Europe, with France “growing really well” and the next expansion being into the U.S. and Asia.

“Our first store in London has been an enabler for us since day one because we were able to build up our visual world. From a consumer perspective, it was a lot easier to grasp and understand what Axel Arigato was about because before that we only existed online or through wholesale partners,” said Svärdh, who declares retail alive more than ever.

“You need to give people a reason to come to your store, no matter if that’s an experience or a visual or service reason. You either go in a route that’s transaction based and that’s why you open a store or you give the consumer an experience, that’s what we’re about. It’s completely fine if you come to one of our parties and you don’t buy s–t, but you’ve come for the experience and that is what we are all about,” he added.

Axel Arigato and Mulberry will be hosting a celebratory party for the collaboration in an underground car park in central London with special performances by Lancey Foux and Tommy Gold.