“Hand in hand, by hand”

 

Spring has finally come to Chicago, and we at Moth have just received a wonderful assortment of spring and summer garments from the Swedish brand Nygårdsanna. I thought I would take this opportunity to introduce this remarkable brand, which continues to be a favorite at Moth.

 

 

Whenever I go through Nygårdsanna’s look books, the images fill the page from margin to margin and situate me in a specific landscape. There’s the sky, a pebbled beach, sparse grasses growing on the side of a rusty barnyard. Worn wood, stone surfaces and the play of light and shadow provide subtle hints and accents. These visuals create textures, and they evoke memories and narratives that exert a powerful pull on me. Nygårdsanna’s garments, draped comfortably and casually over the model, seem to emerge out of that setting as naturally as though they’ve always belonged there.

 

Linen Dress, Blue Stripe

 

Nygårdsanna’s timeless designs, its careful selection of natural materials, its emphasis on handicraft skills, even within a factory context, and its nuanced use of color—mining the spectrum of colors between white and grey-white or the different shades of blue, for example—are just some of the features that make this brand special.

 

 Side Button Blouse, Black

 

Take the Brown Check Shirt Dress from this year’s Spring and Summer Collection. The design of the dress is minimal but fits in all the right places. The main attraction is the color and material of the dress: the vibrant graphic of the check pattern and the weave and texture of the seersucker, which is made of Belgium linen. The light and airy material allows the air to circulate and drapes attractively, accommodating a range of body types.

 

Shirt Dress, Brown Check

 

The Linen Trousers are a study in form. They cinch at the waist and are replete with decorative front pleats and a black button fly, small details that create a beautiful, tailored look. The straight wide leg creates an elegant silhouette while promoting comfort, and the twill weave of the linen incorporates a mix of black and grey for a two-tone effect. The result is gorgeous pair of trousers that blurs the line between casualwear and formalwear, dress up or dress down.

 

 Linen Trousers

 

As the brand’s founder Nygårds Anna Bengtsson has stated on many occasions, the garments are made in consideration of the wearer and enhance the basic, day-to-day experience of wearing clothes. The designs accommodate a range of body types and never overwhelm, allowing the wearer to make creative decisions about how to style or wear them. The collections connect from year to year and from season to season, making mixing and matching between pieces fun and easy to do. Mending is recommended, and so is passing down garments to friends and relatives or recycling by donating to a secondhand shop. The brand’s embrace of sustainability is something that really resonates with me.

 

 

 

As I can personally attest, these pieces stand the test of time, both from a design and quality perspective. The brand has been featured at Moth since the store’s opening in 2015, and I was a shopper of the brand well before that. I now have quite a few Nygårdsanna pieces and something about them prompts me to treasure them, to take good care of them, and to wear them year in and year out. The look of the brand, its menswear and workwear inspired designs, its collaborations with Liberty print cotton, and the amazing level of ease with which I can wear everything—the pants, sweaters, dresses, coats, etc.—all contribute to my positive view of Nygårdsanna.