Together in Toteme: Celebrating 10 years of partnership in design and love

In trying to understand Toteme, the logo is a good place to start. The square monogram houses the six letters of the brand name, the lines and curves arranged in perfect symmetry. Flip it or mirror it and the ambigram arrangement will still look exactly the same. It was designed by Karl Lindman, Toteme’s co-founder. “I wish I could credit it as being some kind of Leonardo da Vinci stroke of genius,” he says. “But it just sort of happened.”

However that’s not quite true. When it comes to Toteme, nothing just sort of happens. Every decision is purposeful and painstakingly precise. A decade ago, Lindman, together with co-founder and now-wife Elin Kling, had landed on the name Totem for their ready-to wear label. It held the symbolism and neutrality that both wanted, but in Kling’s words, it felt “too heavy”, prompting her to suggest the addition of an ‘e’ on the end. “I had originally been working on the monogram using Totem,” Lindman recalls. “It looked nice but didn't align. It was Elin’s touch, adding the extra ‘e’, that saw it all fall into place.”

The story of the monogram speaks to the exacting design philosophy that has made Toteme one of Scandinavia’s most exciting fashion exports, capturing the balance that Lindman and Kling strike as the brand’s co-founders and creative leads. “For me, starting a brand was just a conversation we were having over some glasses of red wine, but Elin woke up in the morning and said, ‘Alright, let’s get going’,” Lindman says. “We are very different in that way. I am a dreamer, and Elin is very much a do-er. I’m more theoretical, while she’s more practical.”

There’s a reason Lindman and Kling are taking some trips down memory lane as we sit in Toteme’s perfectly manicured Stockholm headquarters, our chairs gathered around a desk in their private office. Not only is this year the tenth anniversary of Toteme as a company, but it also marks 10 years of the co-founders’ marriage. “It’s a moment that has called for some reflection, some time spent looking back,” Lindman says. “And we don’t often look backwards.”

Both born and raised in Sweden, the pair met in the early 2010s as hard-working New Yorkers. “We had common friends and we were introduced at a dinner, and Elin fell in love at first sight,” says Lindman, grinning. “I knew you would say that, I was just waiting for it,” Kling responds, dryly. “We were working all the time. We would work until 10 o’clock at night and then meet for dinner,” she goes on, “and that was an early night for us.” “Our first arguments were definitely about me going to work on Sundays,” Lindman says. “And Saturdays,” Kling interjects gently. “But then we decided to have Saturdays off together, remember?”

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It was this shared industrious nature – and perfectionist approach – that had already brought them great success in their pre-Toteme pursuits: Kling as a top fashion blogger and Lindman as an art director working with the likes of Interview Magazine. As a couple, they quickly discovered they held a lot of common values beyond hard work, too. “We realised that we have the same curiosity and drive, and I’ve always felt like we trust each other 110 per cent, not just in life but in our aesthetic point of view. We’re quite dependent on each other,” Kling says.

Fuelled by their synergy as a couple, Kling and Lindman’s desire to start something of their own was also energised by the entrepreneurial wave occurring around them at the time. “The best thing about New York at that time was this real sense of optimism,” Lindman says. “People around us were doing things that stepped away from what they were schooled to do.” Kling and Lindman admit they didn’t know the ins-and-outs of starting a company and all that it would entail, but they knew a lot about the fashion industry and they believed in their grand ambitions. “Sometimes we thank our younger selves because we had the energy and the will and the restlessness and naivety to pursue the dream,” Lindman says.

Nowadays, hundreds of staff work internationally for Toteme, but at first it was just Kling and Lindman sitting opposite each other with their computers in a confined space. “Thank god we were newly in love so we managed to deal with each other,” Lindman laughs. One of the aforementioned entrepreneurs in their social circle was Glossier CEO Emily Weiss, who was busy getting her beauty empire off the ground at the same time but hadn’t quite managed to fill the two-floor office she was renting in New York. “So we then had the chance to sublet a small part of it,” Kling says. “It’s small things like that which really matter in the first years. You need to have some luck.”

Maybe luck played some part, but Kling’s clear aesthetic point of view and loyal online following, together with Lindman’s expertise in luxury branding, proved the perfect formula to stay the course and remain commercially viable in a challenging industry. Toteme emerged confidently onto the scene with a pared-back purity in its garments comparable to Jil Sander or The Row. It was met with praise from critics and consumers alike for the rigorous attention to detail evident in every design. Now the brand boasts an A-list cohort of fans, from Jennifer Lawrence to Gigi Hadid, who can’t get enough of Toteme’s range of sophisticated cuts, sumptuous fabrics and no-fuss staples.

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The couple adopted an attitude of ‘learning by doing’ early on, and the last decade has certainly served up a learning curve. But the brand’s identity – and the idea of the Toteme woman – has always felt clear and distinct. So who is the Toteme woman? “Well, it’s her,” Lindman says, gesturing to Kling, who sits in a crisp black collared shirt in front of an artful bookshelf lined with tomes about Alber to Giacometti and Rudolf Stingel. Kling goes on to describe an empowered woman who is constantly on-the-go and conscious of her time – a description certainly applicable to herself. “I want her wardrobe to feel very clear, and for it to support her and the decision-making that she’s doing every day,” Kling says. “I’m not the kind of person who dreams of the largest walk-in closet filled with bags and shoes like a Kardashian. My dream is the opposite, super curated and elevated.” “As the company grows, we’re interested in our woman in different pockets of the world,” Lindeman adds, “but it’s always a strong, working woman who treasures fashion – while treasuring everything else in life.”

The company may have found its beginnings in New York, but its roots are deepest in Sweden. In 2016, a few years after launching the brand, the couple relocated back to Stockholm and opened the first Toteme flagship in their hometown. “That was a real moment, there was real fashion drama,” Kling smiles, reeling off anecdotes about last-minute redressing of mannequins and panicked repositioning of vases. That debut store was housed in a small abandoned coffee shop, but Toteme has now grown into a ‘clubhouse’ retail space with prime positioning in the Swedish capital – one amongst many international flagship locations, with the most recently opened taking real estate on London’s Mount Street and Los Angeles’ Melrose Avenue.

Just as Stockholm is the homebase for the thriving brand, it’s been a beloved environment for Lindman and Kling in the latest chapter of their life too. Raising two young children, the pair relish living in a central yet quiet part of the city, just two minutes from the office – becoming regulars at local cafe Saturnus (“We’re good friends with the owners”) and visiting Moderna Museet as a family on the weekends (“It’s a hidden treasure with a painting studio for kids downstairs”). Stockholm was also the destination for powerhouses amongst the fashion and art world earlier this summer as Toteme celebrated its decade-long journey with an intimate party at Millesgården, a cultural oasis on the outskirts of the city. Among the stylish attendees was His Royal Highness Prince Daniel of Sweden, cementing the brand’s cachet in high places as a point of fashionable national pride.

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Another marker of the tenth anniversary occurred in January, with Toteme holding its first-ever runway show off-schedule during the Parisian Couture Week circuit. Why? “Because Paris is Paris and we really felt like we were ready to push ourselves and the team to do a show,” Kling responds. It was a subdued yet self-assured display, with timeless transeasonal pieces on show against stark white walls erected within Place Vendôme. As the slew of models closed the show to the soundtrack of Massive Attack’s ‘Unfinished Sympathy’, the line-up of 27 looks inspired by the brand’s decade of archives, a shift could be felt as Toteme secured fashion’s favour to a greater, more global degree. “It was so clearly a milestone and I love to say it’s a milestone because it was only six months ago,” says Kling. “And that means we’re really just on the beginning of our journey.”

As the Toteme journey continues and the brand experiences more organic growth, the perfectionist streak in both Lindman and Kling still runs strong, as they speak about their intent to maintain the highest levels of control and integrity. “Toteme should never feel like a big machine,” Lindman says. “Honestly, we never wanted it to be a very big thing. It wasn’t a ‘taking over the world’ business idea. We just want to produce beautiful designs.”