Jonathan Saunders: It’s a love brand. I think a lot of people hold a real place in their heart for them  from when it was founded. A lot of my girlfriends have always bought things from them and what I love about the brand is that it has always pushed clothing with a fashion point of view and a unique perspective, but at a price point that makes it accessible to a wider audience, while still offering enough value and quality to make it something you want to keep forever. It was an interesting idea to be able to create a new interpretation for the brand. It was a big change, moving to Sweden, and I still have my apartment in New York, so I go back and forth. But now I live in Sweden pretty much full-time. It’s really nice so different from New York, almost the opposite in so many ways. I really like the people I work with; it’s a really nice team. And I’ve been able to work in a way that is actually very similar to how I work within luxury. I think that was the point: even though the audience is broader and wider, I still believe we should approach design in an authentic way, from an authentic viewpoint and starting point. Of course the audience is broader, but still with that same creative way of approaching design and ideas.

I’ve definitely got some experience. What’s important is that I’ve worked for a lot of brands. I had my own line, but while I was building my own brand, I also worked as a consultant for many others. I was able to start seeing and understanding, from different brands’ viewpoints, how different brands do things.

I’ve learned that you really have to understand and respect what is unique about a brand. Every brand you go to is about the brand, it’s not about me bringing in my aesthetic necessarily. It’s about how I can use my design taste, skill, or whatever it is, and interpret it in the right way for that brand. & Other Stories is a brand where colour, print, and expressive design feel believable, and that’s something I’ve always focused on in my own work. So there was definitely an affinity in that way. But there’s also a lot of really great daywear within the brand’s collections that goes beyond that, and it has enabled me to learn a lot more about clothes for much more everyday use, which has been great.

I think expressive design can take many forms. We have a lot of minimalism in the industry right now, and a lot of quiet luxury, and I feel there is space for a much more creative expression within fashion, especially at this price point. The modern way to do that has to align with our lifestyle, because our lifestyle is so transient and changeable. I think customers need more from their clothes. So versatility, as well as originality, is important. I’d say that’s the modern interpretation of expressiveness or expression: people want to say who they are through clothing, but they don’t want the clothing to wear them.

Value. I think the customer expects more. People are jaded by the ridiculous prices of luxury, and I feel that no matter what price point a product sits at, the most important thing is creating value. So the way I work with the teams is really to push for the best possible quality we can achieve with the best materials, the best finishing, and real time and consideration spent on making something special.

I think that, in that moment especially in London people wanted to get dressed up. Youth culture wanted to feel dressed, wanted to express themselves, wanted to feel strong and powerful, and so they became inventive. They mixed and matched different things to make the overall expression feel strong and powerful. There was still this feminine, decorated kind of elegance, but with an almost punk attitude when it came to colour mixes, strong shoulders, exaggerated volume that kind of moment in time I really love. I’m a kid of the ’90s, so that super-expressive ’80s energy moving into the minimalist, everyday ’90s, and the combination of those two things together, feels super exciting to me.

It still speaks to so many people. I think people are nostalgic for a moment in time when youth culture used what they had to express themselves. It was also a time when there was less visual stimulation from the outside, so people looked more to themselves and their own peer groups. They were affected less by the globalization of the world that we live in today. The world we live in now is fascinating and interesting, and everything is great, but sometimes it’s good to look to the past in a nostalgic way to understand how, in a simpler time, creativity flourished.

I love it. I think humility is an important skill to have as a creative, especially when you’re a man designing womenswear. I learn so much from the people who wear the clothes. I don’t think it needs to have a gender associated with it, but in terms of the feminine expression of the brand, I love seeing how it gets interpreted in different ways. Because I’ve always designed a lot of separates knitwear is something I really love working with, as are tailoring, structured pieces, and jackets when you design separates, they’re open to interpretation. People wear them in different ways, and I love that. I get inspired by it.

I always ask the models, the talent, or whoever we’re working with how they feel in the clothes. Would they wear this? Does it feel believable for them? And often, whatever those people say is inspiring for me, because I learn how people can use a collection to express their own personality and style.

Of course, within campaigns, we have a vision, an idea, and a concept. But I always love that freedom of expression the ability to wear it in different ways. The whole thing is always teamwork; it always has been and always will be. Empowering the people I work with other creatives to interpret things in their own way or contribute to the creative vision of the brand is super important. Teamwork makes the best work.

From the perspective of the model, the person creating the image, the photographer, the stylist, everyone has an idea. And I think as long as you have clarity of vision for the overall collection and concept, people understand that vision and can interpret it in their own way, put their own spin on it, and make their contribution.

I think it’s about uniqueness, about making some brave choices. It’s very easy to fall into a minimalist expression because it feels like it’s for everybody, but by making brave choices through colour, fabrication, print, and textiles, you’re bringing something unique. In a saturated world of stuff, maybe that’s a nice way to work. It’s unusual for a broader-audience brand to make such brave choices when it comes to colour and textile design, and so we’re trying something out. Hopefully it works.

My tutor, Louise Wilson at Central Saint Martins, always taught me: find what you do well, find what you can execute that feels original and unique to you, and do it to the nth degree. Do it until it’s maxed out. It was interesting because I studied print and textiles, and I didn’t really wear print and textiles. It was never really my thing. I loved colour maybe not in a way you can see today but at the time I was into Margiela and Helmut Lang, and quite minimalist but sexy clothing. Then gradually, as I started to learn the skill, optimism, colour, and femininity became my strength. I guess it’s about embracing that and understanding how you get good at a craft, a specific skill set and doing it well, rather than trying to be all things to all people.

Red. I don’t know, I think because we’re living in a complex world right now, everybody needs strength and a dynamic, empowering feeling to support them, and I feel like red symbolizes that. Spicy, convincing, strong, that’s the colour that stands out to me right now.

I think it’s about balancing craftsmanship and authenticity with a celebration of everyday life.

A lot has changed. In the beginning, my songs were in English because I didn’t want people to understand what I was writing about or how I felt. That’s changed completely. The songs that are hardest for me emotionally are usually the most important ones. The ones that resonate most with others and mean the most to me. Two years later, when I was around 16, I wrote my first song in German. And in that moment, I decided I’d never write in English again. My English songs were honestly terrible. I’m really glad I never uploaded anything to social media back then and that there are barely any recordings left.

I actually had to be convinced to release it. It took me a while to realize that it’s about finding yourself. But it’s also about the distance of 560 km from Düsseldorf to Berlin. I moved really naively; I thought nothing would change. The first nine months in Berlin, I just pushed through. But somehow, I didn’t feel at home in Berlin, and in Düsseldorf I felt like a guest. Suddenly, there were so many different versions of myself, and I didn’t know which one was the real one or if the version I had in my head was even accurate anymore. That’s how the song came about. A jumble of everything, really.

I’m going on tour in two weeks. I’m not sure what’s coming after that yet. There are still so many songs from the album process that I really love, but that didn’t make it onto the record. But there’s definitely more music coming, and I’ll be playing some great festivals next year.

It’s my first tour, so I think it’s going to be really special. I’m incredibly excited.