The sample room on the third floor of Acne Studios's Stockholm headquarters smells faintly of steam and wool
The sample room on the third floor of Acne Studios's Stockholm headquarters smells faintly of steam and wool. It is early March, and Johanna Andersson is fitting a coat — the same coat, more or less, that she has been fitting for eleven years. The Avalon, a double-breasted wool overcoat with exaggerated lapels and a dropped shoulder, has appeared in some form in nearly every Acne collection since 2014. Andersson, who joined the house in 2013 as a junior pattern cutter, now oversees its construction from first muslin to final press.
She does not cut the cloth herself anymore. That work falls to Malin Bergqvist and Erik Holmström, both trained at the Stockholm technical college and both employed at the atelier Acne maintains in Riga, Latvia. But Andersson reviews every pattern adjustment, every sleeve pitch, every decision about where the canvas should float and where it should fuse. She speaks in increments — two millimetres here, a quarter-inch there. The Avalon is not a complicated garment, structurally. Its distinction lies in proportion, and proportion is a matter of millimetres compounded.
The Riga Atelier
Acne Studios does not own the Riga facility outright. It contracts with a workshop that has been producing tailored outerwear since the Soviet era, when it supplied uniforms to the Latvian SSR. The transition to fashion production began in the early 2000s, and Acne became a client in 2011. Today, roughly forty artisans work on Acne pieces exclusively, though the workshop maintains other contracts. The arrangement is not unusual in contemporary fashion, where vertical integration is rare and partnerships are common. What distinguishes the relationship is duration and specificity.
Bergqvist, who is fifty-two, has been cutting Avalon patterns since the coat's second season. She works from a master block that Andersson sends digitally, then adjusts by hand on a cutting table that spans four metres. The wool — a dense, felted melton from Italy's Lanificio Colombo — arrives in bolts and must be laid flat for twenty-four hours before cutting. Bergqvist marks the grain with tailor's chalk, aligns the pattern pieces, and cuts with shears that weigh nearly a kilo. She does not use a rotary cutter. The weight of the shears, she has said in internal training sessions, keeps the cloth from shifting.
Holmström, thirty-eight, handles the canvas work. The Avalon uses a hair canvas in the chest and lapels — a blend of wool, horsehair, and linen that provides structure without stiffness. He shapes the canvas with an iron, a process called moulding, which involves steam and pressure applied in a specific sequence. The canvas must curve slightly at the chest to match the body's contour. If it lies flat, the coat will collapse inward. If it curves too much, it will pull. Holmström works by feel, checking tension with his palm.
Training and Transmission
None of the three came to Acne with couture training. Andersson studied fashion design at Beckmans in Stockholm, a programme oriented toward concept and illustration rather than construction. She learned pattern-making on the job, working first as an assistant to the house's then-head pattern cutter, Anna Lidström, who left in 2017. Bergqvist trained in industrial garment production, a Soviet-era curriculum heavy on efficiency and light on refinement. Holmström worked in upholstery before moving to apparel.
What they share is an apprenticeship model that has largely disappeared from ready-to-wear. Andersson spent two years observing Lidström before cutting her first muslin. Bergqvist worked under a senior cutter for eighteen months before being allowed to cut a production pattern. Holmström spent a season doing only pressing — no canvas work, no assembly — before advancing. The progression is slow by contemporary standards, where production timelines are measured in weeks and training in days.
Acne's creative director, Jonny Johansson, has described this structure in interviews as a necessity rather than a philosophy. The house produces roughly eight collections a year across menswear, womenswear, and pre-collections. Each collection includes between sixty and ninety looks. The Avalon alone appears in twelve colourways per season, with minor adjustments to length, button placement, and fabric weight. Consistency at that scale requires hands that know the work without instruction.
Signature and Variation
The Avalon is not Acne's only recurring piece — the Jensen boot, the Musubi bag, the Odice trousers all return season after season — but it is the most technically demanding. The coat's dropped shoulder, a signature detail, complicates the sleeve attachment. A traditional set-in sleeve is sewn along the natural shoulder line, where the arm meets the torso. The Avalon's sleeve is set two inches lower, which redistributes tension across the bicep and requires a deeper armscye. If the curve is too shallow, the sleeve restricts movement. If it is too deep, the coat looks unfinished.
Andersson has adjusted the armscye three times since 2014. The first adjustment, in 2016, came after customer feedback indicated that the sleeve pulled when the arm was raised above shoulder height. The second, in 2019, addressed a wrinkling issue at the back armhole. The third, in 2022, was aesthetic — Johansson wanted a cleaner line through the shoulder. Each adjustment required new patterns, new muslins, and new fittings. Bergqvist cut the test pieces. Holmström adjusted the canvas. Andersson fitted them on a dress form, then on a model, then on Johansson himself.
The process is iterative and undramatic. There are no eureka moments, no sudden breakthroughs. Improvement, in this context, is measured in the absence of problems. A sleeve that does not pull. A lapel that does not buckle. A coat that looks, on balance, like it has always looked.
What Comes Next
Andersson is training two junior pattern cutters, both in their twenties, both recent graduates of Swedish design schools. She does not expect them to stay. The fashion industry's centre of gravity has shifted south and east — to Milan, to Paris, to London — and Stockholm is no longer a destination for ambitious young talent. Acne itself has moved much of its design operation to Paris, where Johansson now spends most of his time. The sample room in Stockholm remains, but its future is uncertain.
Bergqvist and Holmström are less concerned. The Riga atelier has outlasted regime changes, economic collapses, and shifts in fashion's supply chain. It will, one suspects, outlast Acne's current organisational structure. The question is not whether the work will continue, but whether it will continue to matter. A coat like the Avalon — expensive, specific, resistant to trend — occupies a precarious position in a market increasingly oriented toward speed and volume.
For now, the work proceeds. Andersson reviews patterns. Bergqvist cuts cloth. Holmström shapes canvas. The Avalon, in its twelfth year, remains in production. Whether it will see a thirteenth depends less on craft than on calculus — the unglamorous arithmetic of margin, market share, and consumer patience. The hands, as always, are ready. The question is whether anyone is still watching.
