In Stockholm last weekend, a pre-spring afternoon was transformed from ho-hum to huzzah with an innovative fashion show for the one-year-old label SSON. It started on the Skanstull subway platform and continued up the stairs and through the streets of Södermalm, wrapping up at the cozy headquarters of Kvartalsrapport (the event organizers), about a five minute walk away. The goings-on were livestreamed from iPhones from four different spots along the route and shared via Twitch so those in the studio (where Bem Subot performed a sound piece), and others, like me logging on from home an ocean away, could watch things unfold.The idea of “democratic” fashion and the need for alternatives to the back-and-forth of traditional runways have been trending topics of late. Here was an event that addressed both concerns as well as sustainability.
SSON, fall 2025 ready-to-wear
SON was founded in 2024 by Yulia Kjellsson and her business partner Ellinor Håkansson, with a mission of doing things differently. “We want to prove that you can do fashion without compromising. And you can work with already existing material and keep [everything that] is exciting about fashion, but without causing harm basically,” the designer explains on a call. “It’s just very interesting to see that there are no limits actually.” While there are some experimental designs in SSON’s first two collections, the emphasis is on tweaked classics—pants, tops, and coats.
SSON (meaning son of) plays on typical Swedish surnames, like Kjellsson, which “is a common worker’s name in Sweden, one that doesn’t have a very high status or is considered beautiful,” says the designer. Her desire to “to change the relationship to common names” runs parallel to what she wants to do with the line in general, which is to transform overlooked things into things that are more than ordinary. The idea is to eventually become scalable.
Though she’s always been creative, Kjellson, 34, says she came late to fashion: “It’s not something that I grew up dreaming about my whole life,” she says. When she was in her early 20s, feeling “young and lost,” the designer inherited her grandmother’s sewing machine, and things took off from there. After studying in Stockholm, she enrolled at ESMOD Berlin, graduating in 2016. Figuring out next steps was tricky; “I really want to work with fashion, but I want to do it in a way that I can really be proud of,” Kjellsson says. “I love the creating part of it, I love the craft, I love the storytelling, but I’m also very interested in politics and society, and I’m a sensitive person and very aware of the times around us and it affects me a lot. I don’t want to have a job that I feel is not contributing to a future for all of us.”
