Swedish Stockings CEO: ‘Tights are the plastic straw of fashion’

In 2024, Swedish Stockings hit €4 million in revenue and expanded into white-label production. Now, it’s unveiling its first megawatt influencer collaboration with Camille Charrière. Launching today, it marks the first time the brand has partnered with a high-profile individual, and Frisinger is hoping it helps to reposition the brand as fashion first, function always.

“Customers don’t buy products because they are sustainable. They buy products — fashion items, at least — because they want to look good and feel good,” Frisinger says. “We really want Swedish Stockings to be seen as a fashion brand more than a lingerie brand or a sustainable brand, and Camille [who has 1.4 million followers on Instagram and over four million likes on TikTok] has the reach to help us do that.”

The collection is a subtly festive nod to Charrière’s signature ’90s-inspired aesthetic. There is a classic pair of black tights (with a higher waistband that can be pulled up and made visible over skirts), as well as a shimmering silver pair (“for parties”), a burgundy pair (or “malbec”, which she describes as a more sophisticated take on TikTok’s “pop of red” trend), and a sepia-toned zebra stripe (an homage to American actress and It-girl Chloë Sevigny). They are made from 86 per cent recycled materials. “With products that are more eco-friendly, there’s a tendency to try and make a statement, but what we actually desperately need is better basics,” says Charrière.

When she asked around about Swedish Stockings prior to signing the partnership, the influencer says she realised they were an “industry secret” among stylists, but her non-fashion friends had never heard of them, despite the “number one question” in her direct messages on Instagram being “where do you get your tights?”. “So it was really important to me to make the perfect pair of black tights and really get the brand in front of people’s eyes,” she says.

Collaborations: Balancing scale with sustainability

A month or so before the Swedish Stockings collaboration came out, Charrière was promoting another design collaboration, with Swedish fast fashion brand Na-kd. It wasn’t ideal timing for Swedish Stockings, who chose to partner with Charrière partly because of her efforts to educate her followers about sustainability, promoting vintage and secondhand, and speaking out against the industry’s unsustainable practices.