In pursuit: Brøgger

Words Sandy Aziz

Lucky for us, a good pow­er suit nev­er goes out of style and is always a great invest­ment. And, if you are in pur­suit of the per­fect pow­er suit, look no fur­ther because Scan­di­na­vian fash­ion brand Brøg­ger has mas­tered it in every form. Giv­ing sim­ple Scan­di­na­vian design diver­si­ty and vibran­cy, Julie Brøg­ger gave OVERDUE the details about her life, her inspi­ra­tion, and her pur­suit of cre­at­ing her dream brand.

Grow­ing up in Den­mark, Julie com­plet­ed her fash­ion degree at The Roy­al Dan­ish Acad­e­my of Art before spend­ing a year in Lon­don doing intern­ships. “I fell in love with Lon­don,” said Julie, “with its eccen­tric­i­ty and bold­ness.” After com­plet­ing her MA, Julie worked for var­i­ous brands in Lon­don and took that knowl­edge and applied it to her own vision, a vision laced with offer­ing women pieces that would bright­en their wardrobes. And, in this pur­suit, the Brøg­ger brand was born.

Sandy Aziz: What does lux­u­ry mean to you? 

Julie Brøg­ger: Expres­sion of indi­vid­u­al­i­ty has a high­er mean­ing of lux­u­ry to me than an obvi­ous show of wealth.  A show of wealth to me is the lazy form of luxury. 

Sandy Aziz: Agreed! So, how would you then define design in the cur­rent social and polit­i­cal climate? 

Julie Brøg­ger: Although fash­ion design is often per­ceived as super­fi­cial, it has always been a great­ly under­es­ti­mat­ed zeit­geist. Fash­ion is like no oth­er cul­tur­al phe­nom­e­non — close­ly linked to the social con­cep­tion of iden­ti­ty, gen­der, sex­u­al­i­ty and under­stand­ing of self — it is impor­tant that we dis­cuss fash­ion and take its effects, on both indi­vid­u­als and the world we live, in seri­ous, cur­rent debates rang­ing from sus­tain­abil­i­ty to sex­u­al­i­ty. Fash­ion can work both for and against issues and it can be a pow­er­ful expres­sive tool and we should absolute­ly uti­lize it.

Sandy Aziz: What sets your brand apart from oth­ers (espe­cial­ly oth­er Nordic brands)? 

Julie Brøg­ger: I think Brøg­ger is a bit bold­er than most Scan­di­na­vian brands. The Brøg­ger aes­thet­ic is root­ed in both Scan­di­na­vian and Lon­don tra­di­tions, and it cre­ates a dual­i­ty of the func­tion­al, Nordic and also the orna­ment­ed, flo­ral London. 

Sandy Aziz: Which oth­er design­ers, if any, inspire you? Why? 

Julie Brøg­ger: The 1980s cou­ture design­ers — like Erik Mortensen for Bal­main — who did some icon­ic dress­es for H.M the Queen Mar­grethe of Den­mark. His use of colour and com­bi­na­tions of con­trast­ing fab­rics was very inspir­ing. Also, Emanuel Ungaro’s mid-1980s col­lec­tions that dis­play bold prints and bright tai­lor­ing. These inspired and remind­ed me to trust my vision for the Brøg­ger col­lec­tions — to be bold, bright, and colourful.

Sandy Aziz: Tell us about one of your favorite designs and why that one is your favorite. 

Julie Brøg­ger: I love a well-cut blaz­er. It is always a cor­ner­stone in my col­lec­tions, and I think it works with every­thing – either as a suit with match­ing trousers – or it takes a dress into a much cool­er direc­tion. I love that look of wear­ing a man’s blaz­er over a long dress.

Sandy Aziz: If you could reach your younger self now, what would you say to them and why? And, do you have any words of wis­dom you would like to give to oth­er design­ers who are up-and-coming?

Julie Brøg­ger: Luck loves hard work and ded­i­ca­tion — so trust the process. And breathe! I was a bit intense when I was younger! In terms of advice, first of all, find why and what you want to bring into the world. Sec­ond, hold onto your authen­tic stance. Lis­ten, yes, but don’t change your course every time some­one tells you to — trust that gut feeling.

Stress­ing that the brand is about longevi­ty and against over­pro­duc­tion and over­con­sump­tion, Julie also high­light­ed that the price point for the brand is just below the high-end lux­u­ry prices that break the bank.
With this in mind, what is next for Brøgger? 

“I’m not a big fan of fast fash­ion, so maybe a bit of dis­rup­tion from the inside,” Julie told OVERDUE. Julie’s desire is to part­ner up with a mid-mar­ket and high-street ori­ent­ed retail­er to prove that it is pos­si­ble to cre­ate “well-made pieces at more achiev­able price points.” 

Most recent­ly and notably, Brøg­ger cre­at­ed a dif­fer­ent type of suit — sur­gi­cal gowns — for NHS and front-line work­ers in their fight against Covid-19. Julie even cre­at­ed a dig­i­tal ver­sion of the PPE pat­terns and these are being shared across the UK with NHS trusts, hos­pi­tals and care homes in hopes more pop-up fac­to­ries can be set-up. 

The SS20 and PF20 col­lec­tions are out now, and the pow­er suit lives on. For more on Brøg­ger, fol­low them @brogger or vis­it brogger.co.