Episode 76
Cathy Nordstrom || Sweden
A few years ago, I had a conversation with Taymoor Atigetchi, founder of Papier about the impact of his Iranian roots on the way that he does business. That train of thought stayed with me. And stayed with me. And stayed with me to the point of preoccupation.
And so now, a series of interviews with entrepreneurs across a variety of countries and cultures. I want to look beyond the accepted clichés and celebrate the variety of approaches to what makes for ‘good business’. I want to explore customs, political systems, climate, temperament, geography and expectations. What motivates, delights, disappoints.
I miss the days when you would come back from a holiday with sweets or stationery or treasures that you could only get in a specific place. It is too easy in the truly global economy to drive towards the homogenous. And so I hope to celebrate the breadth of style and approach, the idiosyncratic, the different.
And so we begin our journey in Sweden. Cathy Nordstrom is the founder of her eponymous textile brand based in Stockholm. She has a look and style that says, come and sit down, I’ll pour you a proper drink, put on some Fleetwood Mac and we will have a fantastic chat.
Even more wonderful is the fact that her pieces are designed, hand printed and produced in Sweden. Inspired by a sometimes forgotten Swedish heritage of colour, detailed and floral design, her love for pattern and textiles is contagious.
After many years in graphic and then pattern design, Cathy opened her own company in 2019 and it has quickly found its way onto the design landscape. She says every room gets better with textiles and her aim is always to encourage us to select pieces that make our hearts sing. In Swedish, of course.
“Why and how did we end up being the minimalist country? Perhaps it’s Ikea! In the 90s we had a big wave of design with Sweden on the map in fashion and interiors. Everything was very minimalistic. And it stuck. We have a heritage of lots of pattern, embroidery and weaving and I am not sure why and how that went away.”