Exclusive: How Our Legacy Plans to Level Up as Sales Top $50 Million

PARIS — Our Legacy is in “very advanced” talks with landlords to open three or four freestanding stores this year, CEO Richardos Klarén says.

The stores — slated for key fashion capitals like Paris and Tokyo — represent a significant step in the brand’s expansion following a minority investment by LVMH’s Luxury Ventures fund in 2024. The plan will roughly double Our Legacy’s network of freestanding boutiques, which were previously limited to Stockholm, London and Berlin.

The Swedish label has “geared up on all aspects” since the investment, Klarén says. That’s meant also rolling out new department store shop-in-shops at Printemps, Parco and Dover Street Market over the past year, along with its fifth shop-in-shop in Korea.

The brand has also been expanding its collection to include more bags, shoes, small accessories and — crucially — womenswear, which represents only a small slice of its business.

The 20 year-old brand’s revenues surpassed 500 million Swedish krona ($56 million) for the fiscal year through June 2025, growing around 20 percent year-on-year as strong word-of-mouth momentum, category expansion and the shift to operating its own corners helped offset turbulence in the wholesale market.

At Our Legacy’s showroom during men’s fashion week (in Paris, to which the brand has returned after several seasons in Milan), the collection featured more formalwear, with dashes of floaty viscose and sheer muslin suggesting a whiff of inspiration from the recent collaborations with Emporio Armani have drifted into the mainline. The black and ivory formal pieces often had a crumpled aspect, and were styled with shawls suggesting an Old World funeral as much as the small plates restaurant where you’re likely to encounter an Our Legacy client wearing them. Those were interspersed with workwear- and grunge-inspired pieces like Air Force mechanics jackets and washed-out tartan shirts. More directional items for the season included perforated leather vests and a dress that combined a plaid shirt with a knotted grey suit-skirt.

“We like to play with stereotypes. Whether it’s workwear, denim or tailoring, I like to go back to the originals — a US navy chino, a real machinist jacket. Clothing that can hold onto its purpose even as we subvert it with the materials and details,” creative director Cristopher Nying said. “This season we mixed in more formalwear, with a sort of mournful vibe.”

Nying co-founded Our Legacy in 2005 with Jockum Hallin, originally experimenting with using equipment from his family’s printing business to make graphic tees and hoodies. CEO Karén, an Acne Studios alum, joined them a couple of years later to steer the business. Nying is creative director for the main line while Hallum focuses on steering the brand’s “Work Shop” programme, which uses deadstock fabrics and upcycled products as fodder for collaborations with the likes of Stüssy, Emporio Armani and Satisfy Running.

The brand initially found its groove with a preppy Americana aesthetic but pivoted its approach as Nying worried the label was being pigeonholed as a heritage concept. Collections became increasingly eclectic, with more pronounced references to skateboarding, grunge, Italian sprezzatura and Belgian design tempering the brand’s bent toward Scandi minimalism.

Our Legacy steadily built a word-of-mouth following for its collections—which felt designed but still easy-to-wear, and priced well below the likes of Margiela and Dries Van Noten. (Prices have drifted upward in recent seasons but remain a healthy notch below designer and luxury brands, with $555 boots and $845 coats).

”We’ve always been price conscious, and I believe we’ve kept them very honest,” Klarén said. Luxury brands’ prices, by contrast, “have gone through the roof, which has created a void.”

Then came fashion’s post-pandemic surge, which coincided with a burgeoning fatigue with the logos and hype-driven dynamics that had typified a previous generation of menswear successes like Off-White and Supreme. Ankle boots and two-toned loafers from Our Legacy began to pop off in the menswear forums that had previously focused on Yeezy sneakers.

Achieving $10 million in annual revenue had taken more than 15 years. The next $30 million took only three.

“You stay consistent, and at some point what you’re doing merges with the zeitgeist,” Klarén said.

“Customers like the brand because they are buying into quality. Well-made items, yes, but also quality design, with details and shapes that are akin to more established luxury labels. Customers also appreciate the individuality the brand can provide them,” Selfridges buying director Bosse Myhr said. Surging sales have yet to chip away at the brand’s under-the-radar appeal, it seems. “When there is a drop or delivery, customers buy into the brand very fast,” he added.

The brand hopes to keep up pacey growth with the addition of new retail space, which is helping to reach new customers, showcase its offer across categories and reduce its reliance on wholesale.

Ready-to-wear, particularly denim, continues to drive the business. Shoes, including the best-selling Camion ankle boots, account for 15 percent of the business. Its womenswear line, created in 2018, still only accounts for 10 percent of sales — representing a key opportunity for growth. Wholesales still accounts for 65 percent of sales.

While details of the new stores remain under wraps for now, Nying has a few favourite destinations in mind, which the brand might look to for inspiration: Dries Van Noten’s intimate, arty boutiques in Antwerp and Paris; Comme des Garçons’ exuberant fashion playgrounds; the Dongliang concept store and tea house in Shanghai.

Those are lofty benchmarks. But so far Our Legacy’s stores and Work Shop spaces in London and Stockholm have proven there is appetite for in-person gatherings that can lend cultural heft to the brand’s take on contemporary fashion. Well-attended events staffed by buzzy young chefs have included a listening party for Blood Orange, a takeover of a Paris food market, performances by Baba Stiltz and Ghostface Killah and a wine-and-fashion collab with influential vintner Gabrio Brini.

“We’ll be a new brand having these key stores,” Klarén said. “We’re going to put the emphasis on growing our audience. And growing women’s, but we’re not in a great hurry.”

Disclosure: LVMH is part of a group of investors who, together, hold a minority interest in The Business of Fashion. All investors have signed shareholders’ documentation guaranteeing BoF’s complete editorial independence.