The House of Dagmar is having its day as the business expands rapidly in the US. Yet it was the illuminator of the night sky, the moon, that Sofia Wallenstam had in sight while creating the fall collection, which was, more generally, about shape. “We really worked from the circle,” said Wallenstam on a call, citing the soft curves of a horizontal cable-knit sweater and the rounded backs of jackets (as in Look 7) that were inspired, she explained, by couture techniques. Still, it’s geometry that came through most strongly in the look book.
The roots of this Swedish brand (which will turn 20 next year) are in knitwear, and while that remains a strong category, it’s the house’s smart tailoring (slimmer this season than in the past) that seems to be the main draw. Day and night were well-balanced in this collection; there was a terrific tuxedo coat as well as one in a hearty herringbone tweed. An on-trend corduroy pantsuit shared space with a silver leather skirt and pants, which could be dressed up or down. Wallenstam and her sister Karin Söderlind have been working diligently behind the scenes on making their aesthetically classic clothes more sustainable in terms of material and production, and now, after years of work and with new talent in the atelier, their vision, the former said, is really starting to translate.
“Cirkeln är sluten,” said Wallenstem, meaning it’s a full-circle moment for the brand, which was founded in 2005 around the time of the so-called Swedish fashion miracle. House of Dagmar’s high point happily coincides with fashion’s fixation on real, everyday, democratic clothes (which are probably best understood in contrast to the opposite—fantastical, showy pieces). Relatability, like affordability, is relative, but it makes sense that you’d find those values at this and other Nordic designer brands, as the focus in that region, generally speaking, is on the contemporary market—a midpoint between luxury and high street that feels overlooked by the industry even as it seems to actually lean into good-design-for-many, if not democratic, ideals. House of Dagmar’s tightly edited fall collection could rightly be described as lagom—that’s Swedish for “just right.”
