Our Legacy (Q8850)
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Swedish clothing brand
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Our Legacy |
Swedish clothing brand |
Statements
Our Legacy’s influence on menswear is such that editors, speaking in shorthand, describe some emerging brands as trying to be the next OL. Essentially they are talking about the legacy of Our Legacy—which includes an anti-fashion stance that embraces grunge, moto, and military influences and lends a sense of timelessness to the pieces. There’s also a muted color palette and, since the introduction of women’s, a two-way kind of androgyny. In short, effortlessness (fashion’s holy grail) imbued with cool. Some of these elements can be replicated but the power of the “Our” in the brand name cannot be overlooked. This independent label was founded by three tight-knit friends, and, in his quiet and confident way, creative director Cristopher Nying takes his own experiences and abstracts them in such a way that they are at once personal and universal.This season the abstraction was physically manifest in the lookbook in which models were photographed behind glass, at a remove, with reflections sometimes adding texture to the images. This could be read as a metaphor for modern life in a digital age, where content is consumed through a glass screen, but Nying had something different in mind.The collection’s starting point was Greek fishing villages, and photos of DIY cloth-wrapped motors taken there by Nying’s friend Hank Grüner. Beach detritus, such as grape vines, bottle caps, shell fragments, rope, and fishing lures were upcycled or cast into jewelry. Fishing nets inspired a knotted tank, and the shapes of sails made their way into wrapped skirts. Technical gear for marine life was another influence, most dramatically in a life vest-like gilet that swelled out into a peplum.Nying achieved a “wet look” in various intriguing ways. Airy crinkled sweaters were made of a mix of silk and metal threads, and a cropped white nylon jacket was washed and shrunken to create a clinging effect. There was a requisite marinière stripe created through shadow-like transparencies on a think knit. The classic sailor shirt with the flap collar was edited into a loose-fit, high-buttoning blazer with a “falling collar.” Building on the Mediterranean theme, a few of the women’s looks followed the curvy “bella figura” silhouette, but deconstructed the OL way. Ingeniously, a filmy, tied-at-the-waist skirt was is essentially an oversize T-shirt and could be worn as one. Similarly, a must-have robe coat could be worn inside-out.
Nying’s imaginary fishing village is, apparently, sun-scorched as the models had artificial sun-burns. Their wet-looks could represent sweat as easily as ocean water; in fact, the glass suggested the former. The intention, Nying said, was to create the feeling of being “inside a bubble or inside a terminal. I wanted to leave it a bit open; it could be that you come inside from a very hot, dreamy place, but I still wanted it to feel like you missed the plane to this dream place and are standing in a terminal in an airport or something.” There was something dreamy about the whole scenario that verged on the surreal. This aspect of the spring lineup was captured in two surprising accessories. Referencing Donald Duck’s fishing misadventures where the catch is not a fish but an old shoe, there was a “collapsing consultant” shoe that looked like a Tom Rath-style business shoe, that could be worn as a slip on. The collection’s sunken treasure was a faceless silver watch. Breaking with Dalí, Nying’s timepiece wasn’t melting: instead time was suspended and gratification delayed—at least until this catch of a collection lands in stores.
15 June 2024
Our Legacy’s influence on menswear is such that editors, speaking in shorthand, describe some emerging brands as trying to be the next OL. Essentially they are talking about the legacy of Our Legacy—which includes an anti-fashion stance that embraces grunge, moto, and military influences and lends a sense of timelessness to the pieces. There’s also a muted color palette and, since the introduction of women’s, a two-way kind of androgyny. In short, effortlessness (fashion’s holy grail) imbued with cool. Some of these elements can be replicated but the power of the “Our” in the brand name cannot be overlooked. This independent label was founded by three tight-knit friends, and, in his quiet and confident way, creative director Cristopher Nying takes his own experiences and abstracts them in such a way that they are at once personal and universal.This season the abstraction was physically manifest in the lookbook in which models were photographed behind glass, at a remove, with reflections sometimes adding texture to the images. This could be read as a metaphor for modern life in a digital age, where content is consumed through a glass screen, but Nying had something different in mind.The collection’s starting point was Greek fishing villages, and photos of DIY cloth-wrapped motors taken there by Nying’s friend Hank Grüner. Beach detritus, such as grape vines, bottle caps, shell fragments, rope, and fishing lures were upcycled or cast into jewelry. Fishing nets inspired a knotted tank, and the shapes of sails made their way into wrapped skirts. Technical gear for marine life was another influence, most dramatically in a life vest-like gilet that swelled out into a peplum.Nying achieved a “wet look” in various intriguing ways. Airy crinkled sweaters were made of a mix of silk and metal threads, and a cropped white nylon jacket was washed and shrunken to create a clinging effect. There was a requisite marinière stripe created through shadow-like transparencies on a think knit. The classic sailor shirt with the flap collar was edited into a loose-fit, high-buttoning blazer with a “falling collar.” Building on the Mediterranean theme, a few of the women’s looks followed the curvy “bella figura” silhouette, but deconstructed the OL way. Ingeniously, a filmy, tied-at-the-waist skirt was is essentially an oversize T-shirt and could be worn as one. Similarly, a must-have robe coat could be worn inside-out.
Nying’s imaginary fishing village is, apparently, sun-scorched as the models had artificial sun-burns. Their wet-looks could represent sweat as easily as ocean water; in fact, the glass suggested the former. The intention, Nying said, was to create the feeling of being “inside a bubble or inside a terminal. I wanted to leave it a bit open; it could be that you come inside from a very hot, dreamy place, but I still wanted it to feel like you missed the plane to this dream place and are standing in a terminal in an airport or something.” There was something dreamy about the whole scenario that verged on the surreal. This aspect of the spring lineup was captured in two surprising accessories. Referencing Donald Duck’s fishing misadventures where the catch is not a fish but an old shoe, there was a “collapsing consultant” shoe that looked like a Tom Rath-style business shoe, that could be worn as a slip on. The collection’s sunken treasure was a faceless silver watch. Breaking with Dalí, Nying’s timepiece wasn’t melting: instead time was suspended and gratification delayed—at least until this catch of a collection lands in stores.
15 June 2024
Cooking is a new-ish passion for Our Legacy’s Christopher Nying, who grew up in a home where food was an expression of love. He spread theamorethis season by taking over a restaurant in Milan and preparing a meal for a gathering of friends and colleagues. His fall collection, called Feast, was similarly hospitable. You can always count on OL for a perfect jacket, leather toppers, unusual knits, and great separates for layering, and they were all there, rendered in the colors of various earthy fungi. While the menu of offerings remained familiar, Nying made many subtle and savory changes to his “recipes.”This collection, said the designer on a call, was the second part of a story that started in 2019 with the brand’sChambre Séparée collection, which was presented at Stockholm’s upscale Café Opera and had a theme of “youth depravation in a bourgeois setting.” Feast was imagined as a more “proletariat” rehearsal dinner in an industrial space with plastic chairs. Iterating on Beate and Heinz Rose’s 1972 photography bookPaare(a copy of which was used as a prop) that documented West German couples of all ages and backgrounds against white backdrops, Nying similarly worked with a cast of all ages and positioned them together against the chalky walls. He extended the idea of a motley crew into an eclectic offering that delighted in the details. The designer called out women’s look 6 and men’s look 29 as being exemplars of the season. He wears creased track pants and a hoodie that have the look of acid-washed denim with a white shirt, leather tie, and sharp black blazer. She has on a long slip dress in a soft blue plaid (a deliberate grunge reference) with an almost-tunic-length thick beige sweater and carries a black leather clutch and gloves. Her hair is held back not with hair pins but tie clips, a superb example of Nying’s attention to detail and the deep vein of tenderness that runs through his work.“Imagine what happens if you remove the tie or remove the glasses or the gloves—[elements] which in my head are quite formal—you become someone else,” said the designer, who noted that he was also focused on “homely things.” And so a simple plastic bread clip was rendered as a silver pendant; the same metal was used for delicate lacy accessories inspired by Swedish pantry shelf trims. The lace made into garments was meant to reference curtains, and within the context of the theme, slip shapes became apron-like.
There wasn’t a great distance between interiors and interiority chez Our Legacy this season—nor is there any season, for that matter. The brand’s special sauce is making quality, not-quite classic clothing that has a throwaway, anti-fashion glamour. (Effortlessness, in fashion-speak.) Not showy in any way, OL makes pieces that you buy for yourself to amplify your individuality as well as indie credibility.As Our Legacy shows in Milan, in a predominantly Catholic country: this editor was tempted to think of The Last Supper, but that wasn’t one of Nying’s references. Feasts are, however, secular rituals, and in such divisive times, OL’s impulse to deconstruct the formality of the feast (as well as that of the wardrobe) and focus on coming together seemed both humanistic and spot-on. Food, after all, is a form of diplomacy. As it’s written in the New Testament, “It’s hard to remain enemies when you’ve broken bread together.”
13 January 2024
Cooking is a new-ish passion for Our Legacy’s Christopher Nying, who grew up in a home where food was an expression of love. He spread theamorethis season by taking over a restaurant in Milan and preparing a meal for a gathering of friends and colleagues. His fall collection, called Feast, was similarly hospitable. You can always count on OL for a perfect jacket, leather toppers, unusual knits, and great separates for layering, and they were all there, rendered in the colors of various earthy fungi. While the menu of offerings remained familiar, Nying made many subtle and savory changes to his “recipes.”This collection, said the designer on a call, was the second part of a story that started in 2019 with the brand’sChambre Séparée collection, which was presented at Stockholm’s upscale Café Opera and had a theme of “youth depravation in a bourgeois setting.” Feast was imagined as a more “proletariat” rehearsal dinner in an industrial space with plastic chairs. Iterating on Beate and Heinz Rose’s 1972 photography bookPaare(a copy of which was used as a prop) that documented West German couples of all ages and backgrounds against white backdrops, Nying similarly worked with a cast of all ages and positioned them together against the chalky walls. He extended the idea of a motley crew into an eclectic offering that delighted in the details. The designer called out women’s look 6 and men’s look 29 as being exemplars of the season. He wears creased track pants and a hoodie that have the look of acid-washed denim with a white shirt, leather tie, and sharp black blazer. She has on a long slip dress in a soft blue plaid (a deliberate grunge reference) with an almost-tunic-length thick beige sweater and carries a black leather clutch and gloves. Her hair is held back not with hair pins but tie clips, a superb example of Nying’s attention to detail and the deep vein of tenderness that runs through his work.“Imagine what happens if you remove the tie or remove the glasses or the gloves—[elements] which in my head are quite formal—you become someone else,” said the designer, who noted that he was also focused on “homely things.” And so a simple plastic bread clip was rendered as a silver pendant; the same metal was used for delicate lacy accessories inspired by Swedish pantry shelf trims. The lace made into garments was meant to reference curtains, and within the context of the theme, slip shapes became apron-like.
There wasn’t a great distance between interiors and interiority chez Our Legacy this season—nor is there any season, for that matter. The brand’s special sauce is making quality, not-quite classic clothing that has a throwaway, anti-fashion glamour. (Effortlessness, in fashion-speak.) Not showy in any way, OL makes pieces that you buy for yourself to amplify your individuality as well as indie credibility.As Our Legacy shows in Milan, in a predominantly Catholic country: this editor was tempted to think of The Last Supper, but that wasn’t one of Nying’s references. Feasts are, however, secular rituals, and in such divisive times, OL’s impulse to deconstruct the formality of the feast (as well as that of the wardrobe) and focus on coming together seemed both humanistic and spot-on. Food, after all, is a form of diplomacy. As it’s written in the New Testament, “It’s hard to remain enemies when you’ve broken bread together.”
13 January 2024
With smartphones always at hand, we theoretically have acquired third eyes, yet we often cannot believe what we see. The doubleness of stage-managed and retouched images, plus advancements in AI and deepfake technology, continue to splinter reality. In this environment, touch (which implies intimacy or proximity) gains primacy. Christopher Nying played with some of these ideas in his latest Our Legacy collection. Titled Snow in April, it was based, as always, on personal experience, but it also said something about the zeitgeist.If we take everything down to essentials, Nying’s preoccupations this season were light and temperature. Because of the cold and darkness that precede the coming of spring in Sweden, the aspect of “awakening” is especially heightened. More often than not it’s also thwarted; just when you think you can walk barefoot on the lawn, the temperatures will drop, and the newly green landscape will be covered in a magic blanket of snow. Mother Nature’s whims play with the emotions, and, said Nying, introduce an element of indecisiveness into getting dressed: “You don’t really know what to wear.” That uncertain state of mind was reflected in the way Our Legacy’s models wore the collection: dressed for any contingency in many (light) layers.Spring’s styling followed along the lines of last season’s. “I wanted to continue that language but [asked myself] ‘How can we do this in spring?’” the designer said. You could even go so far as to call this collection a sequel to the one that preceded it. (This provides a neat tie-in to the horror-movie subtheme here.) Nying’s conceit for spring was to take familiar fall silhouettes and garments and render them in thin, airy fabrics. In a sense, it was all camouflage. Snowflake knit sweaters, for example, were made using what he described as a “breathable” hemp yarn that looks like wool suiting. This fluid idea of inter-seasonality seeped into the idea of gender; the elements, from heels to trousers, were for men and women alike (albeit sized differently).There was something of askogsmulle(forest troll) aspect to the earthy palette and the layering, but there were grown-up (e.g., work-ready) options in the mix and citified looks as well. The model in the plaid zip up in look nine could have been channeling early Oasis; other pieces that were treated with a pigment dye designed to fade over time had a vintage feel.
The bondage accessories worked well with the hair-raiser prints, which were inspired, Nying said, by VHS horror movies.These days the nightly news can be frightening, but Nying was looking back to his childhood, when he would watch movies likeThe Ladderin the daytime “to not be too scared,” and he played with that “horror in the day” idea much as he did with binaries like spring and winter and perception and reality. This tactile collection felt very close to life as it is lived. Nying can always find fantasy in the everyday. As they say, life is stranger—and often even more wonderful—than fiction.
18 June 2023
With smartphones always at hand, we theoretically have acquired third eyes, yet we often cannot believe what we see. The doubleness of stage-managed and retouched images, plus advancements in AI and deepfake technology, continue to splinter reality. In this environment, touch (which implies intimacy or proximity) gains primacy. Christopher Nying played with some of these ideas in his latest Our Legacy collection. Titled Snow in April, it was based, as always, on personal experience, but it also said something about the zeitgeist.If we take everything down to essentials, Nying’s preoccupations this season were light and temperature. Because of the cold and darkness that precede the coming of spring in Sweden, the aspect of “awakening” is especially heightened. More often than not it’s also thwarted; just when you think you can walk barefoot on the lawn, the temperatures will drop, and the newly green landscape will be covered in a magic blanket of snow. Mother Nature’s whims play with the emotions, and, said Nying, introduce an element of indecisiveness into getting dressed: “You don’t really know what to wear.” That uncertain state of mind was reflected in the way Our Legacy’s models wore the collection: dressed for any contingency in many (light) layers.Spring’s styling followed along the lines of last season’s. “I wanted to continue that language but [asked myself] ‘How can we do this in spring?’” the designer said. You could even go so far as to call this collection a sequel to the one that preceded it. (This provides a neat tie-in to the horror-movie subtheme here.) Nying’s conceit for spring was to take familiar fall silhouettes and garments and render them in thin, airy fabrics. In a sense, it was all camouflage. Snowflake knit sweaters, for example, were made using what he described as a “breathable” hemp yarn that looks like wool suiting. This fluid idea of inter-seasonality seeped into the idea of gender; the elements, from heels to trousers, were for men and women alike (albeit sized differently).There was something of askogsmulle(forest troll) aspect to the earthy palette and the layering, but there were grown-up (e.g., work-ready) options in the mix and citified looks as well. The model in the plaid zip up in look nine could have been channeling early Oasis; other pieces that were treated with a pigment dye designed to fade over time had a vintage feel.
The bondage accessories worked well with the hair-raiser prints, which were inspired, Nying said, by VHS horror movies.These days the nightly news can be frightening, but Nying was looking back to his childhood, when he would watch movies likeThe Ladderin the daytime “to not be too scared,” and he played with that “horror in the day” idea much as he did with binaries like spring and winter and perception and reality. This tactile collection felt very close to life as it is lived. Nying can always find fantasy in the everyday. As they say, life is stranger—and often even more wonderful—than fiction.
18 June 2023
It might be premature to call out proportion play as a theme of the fall 2023 season, but that was certainly the case at Our Legacy, where Christopher Nying was focused on the actual fit of some pretty rad ’fits.A father to two young daughters, Nying looked at their clothes as well as the childrenswear he’s amassed over the years. (One of the inspiration items for the collection, a pink-and-white striped onesie, appears as a showpiece that Nying described as “an internal smile.”) He also considered how his younger self dressed and his overall aesthetic: “I’m kind of grungy,” the designer admitted. But if his new collection is personal, it is also a technical one that involves ingenious problem-solving.Take look six, for example. It’s based on the designer’s daughter’s jacket, a vintage N-3B parka that Nying brought to the office and played around with. “We changed the proportions on the width only and made it into a top.” Leather sleeves were added, with kid’s art pencils stuffed in the pocket to elicit another smile.“I like the idea that in this collection we actually wash and dye a lot in the sense of getting this proper patina, like the shrink. The mistakes are there,” Nying said. Also present are many wonderful details: Twine of the kind used on toggle closures is repurposed as raw ties on undervests; a chain knit updates the classic cable; the Cure gets a shout-out via a Robert Smith T-shirt; corduroy is oriented horizontally; and some pants and jackets have zip, rather than button, finishings.One longish cardigan, noted Nying, has the same fit as when he puts his own cardigan on his daughter. Note too the way that the shoulder is set into shrunken blazers. Pants are sharp or full; Nying’s vision is generous and allows for variety. At the same time, he has certain touchstones—a military kit is one of them. In addition to the American N-3B jacket, Nying reworked a classic Swedish army topper (look eight). There are bomber and waxed outdoor jackets, as well as duffle and teddy coats that read as classics despite their adjusted shapes. At OL it’s not just what you wear but how you wear it that counts, which is what personal style is all about.“This is a very personal styling for me,” explained Nying on a call. Swipe through the collection, and you’ll see double skirts, pants over pants, sweaters over jackets, knits over leather, knits on knits, gaiters over pants, and plaids on plaids.
“I’m not super into layering normally, but with this collection, because you have big and small proportions, it’s very easy to layer. It’s like a mixtape—you take what you have and just put it on you, in a way. It’s a kind of bad styling, but I like it when you do it because it’s comfortable, it keeps you warm.”What Nying is talking about is not just a look and a function but a natural, offhand gesture of someone more concerned with where they are going than how they will look when they get there—the anti-fashion stance, essentially. Of course, this collection and its styling are conscious, but the OL magic is to create clothes that are familiar yet off in an alluring way that draws you in—and keeps you coming back for more.
15 January 2023
It might be premature to call out proportion play as a theme of the fall 2023 season, but that was certainly the case at Our Legacy, where Christopher Nying was focused on the actual fit of some pretty rad ’fits.A father to two young daughters, Nying looked at their clothes as well as the childrenswear he’s amassed over the years. (One of the inspiration items for the collection, a pink-and-white striped onesie, appears as a showpiece that Nying described as “an internal smile.”) He also considered how his younger self dressed and his overall aesthetic: “I’m kind of grungy,” the designer admitted. But if his new collection is personal, it is also a technical one that involves ingenious problem-solving.Take look six, for example. It’s based on the designer’s daughter’s jacket, a vintage N-3B parka that Nying brought to the office and played around with. “We changed the proportions on the width only and made it into a top.” Leather sleeves were added, with kid’s art pencils stuffed in the pocket to elicit another smile.“I like the idea that in this collection we actually wash and dye a lot in the sense of getting this proper patina, like the shrink. The mistakes are there,” Nying said. Also present are many wonderful details: Twine of the kind used on toggle closures is repurposed as raw ties on undervests; a chain knit updates the classic cable; the Cure gets a shout-out via a Robert Smith T-shirt; corduroy is oriented horizontally; and some pants and jackets have zip, rather than button, finishings.One longish cardigan, noted Nying, has the same fit as when he puts his own cardigan on his daughter. Note too the way that the shoulder is set into shrunken blazers. Pants are sharp or full; Nying’s vision is generous and allows for variety. At the same time, he has certain touchstones—a military kit is one of them. In addition to the American N-3B jacket, Nying reworked a classic Swedish army topper (look eight). There are bomber and waxed outdoor jackets, as well as duffle and teddy coats that read as classics despite their adjusted shapes. At OL it’s not just what you wear but how you wear it that counts, which is what personal style is all about.“This is a very personal styling for me,” explained Nying on a call. Swipe through the collection, and you’ll see double skirts, pants over pants, sweaters over jackets, knits over leather, knits on knits, gaiters over pants, and plaids on plaids.
“I’m not super into layering normally, but with this collection, because you have big and small proportions, it’s very easy to layer. It’s like a mixtape—you take what you have and just put it on you, in a way. It’s a kind of bad styling, but I like it when you do it because it’s comfortable, it keeps you warm.”What Nying is talking about is not just a look and a function but a natural, offhand gesture of someone more concerned with where they are going than how they will look when they get there—the anti-fashion stance, essentially. Of course, this collection and its styling are conscious, but the OL magic is to create clothes that are familiar yet off in an alluring way that draws you in—and keeps you coming back for more.
15 January 2023
“Luft” is the Swedish translation of the word “air,” and creative director Christopher Nying riffed on the theme for the Our Legacy spring collection, presented during Milan Fashion Week for the first time through a showroom presentationOur Legacy is about intelligent construction of garments with a minimalist look. Their pragmatic, technical nature is mitigated by the sophistication of Nordic essentiality, elevated to coolness through an illusionistic take on hybridized shapes and volumes. If the idea sounds conceptually overcomplicated, the results IRL were surprisingly attractive and eminently wearable. After all, Swedes are often elegantly straightforward in their approach to style and lifestyle. However, creative u-turns are to be expected.This was the case where fabrications and treatments traditionally appropriate for certain climates were instead reinterpreted for the contrary. Heavy-looking jumpers were made in soft silk; leather biker jackets were rendered in gentle chintzed cotton; airy fabrics were overprinted with abstract/grungy lumberjack checks. On the same note, tailoring incorporated technical aspects and utilitarian details. Reversed and deconstructed, the collection had “an illusory outdoor feel,” said Nying, who limited the amount of trims, not to mention the completely alien notion of decoration, to let the custom-made fabrications, interesting in their imaginative finishes, do all the talking.
18 June 2022
Uniforms of all sorts are a perennial reference for Our Legacy’s creative director Christopher Nying, who likes to make us look at familiar objects in new ways. For spring, he focused on reimagining the classic M15 jacket, but for fall, his remit is wider. Now he’s more interested in a dressed-up look, and he went about achieving it by making a sort of Richard Scarry–like inventory of sartorial stereotypes and then mixing them all together. A policeman’s blue shirt might be paired with suit pants; a tuxedo jacket with cargos. The idea, he wrote in the program notes, was “imagining a child’s idea of the uniform of a teacher, of a banker, a parent going to dinner, an office worker commuting.” He was also thinking about reactions to authority, like admiration and rebellion.Nying prefers a gentle kind of anarchy, and maybe this is what makes O.L. collections look so easy and directional at once. Many of the trends we clocked on the street during the menswear shows are present here. Besides the aforementioned cargo pants (O.L.’s come with suspenders), there are penny loafers, to which Nying’s added a lug sole. Here, the skirt to layer over trousers is an asymmetric pleated wrap with an unfinished hem, as if cut by a child.“Progressive prep,” is how Jockum Hallin, the CEO, dubbed the collegiate touches, which coexist with a bit of a 1970s spin; note the flared legs, the longer collars on “police blue” shirts, and the heeled boots for men. There are many subtle, pleasing details throughout the collection, such as tone-on-tone tuxedo stripes on pants, a belt that looks like the waist of a pair of jeans, and corduroys with a digital jean-print. More dramatic are the thigh-high gaiters and jeans that are split up the front and filled in with an insert, which seem like a kind of metaphor for the O.L. m.o., which is to take things apart and build them back better.
27 January 2022