• photography Linda Alfvegren

    fashion Ulrika Lindqvist

    hair and makeup Filippa Smedhagen

    A decade of crime, psychology, and gripping twists, an interview with author Mikaela Bley

    Written by Ulrika Lindqvist

    Swedish author Mikaela Bley marks 10 years since her debut with Lycke, the first in a string of bestselling psychological thrillers. With a background in television and a fascination for female perpetrators, Bley has carved out a distinctive voice in Scandinavian noir. In this interview, she reflects on her creative journey, the real-life inspiration behind her stories, and how her own fears and recent reality TV experience, shape the narratives she writes.

    Ulrika Lindqvist: Congratulations on celebrating 10 years as an author! Did you always now you wanted to write? What made you take the leap into writing your first novel 10 years ago?

    Mikaela Bley: Thank you! When I worked as an acquisition executive at TV4, I bought a true crime series about women who kill and became completely hooked. I read everything about female perpetrators, and that’s where the idea for my first book series about Ellen Tamm (crime reporter at TV4) was born. Female killers and victims are still a recurring theme in my books. I have always been interested in exploring the origins of a crime, its psychology, and the underlying motives. My ambition is to write multifaceted, exciting, and gripping stories – where nothing is as it first seems. My ambition is to portray our contemporary society from different and new perspectives and to raise questions about guilt, power and justice - where the line between perpetrator and victim lies dangerously close.

    UL: You released your debut Lycke in 2015, how has the response, both critically and from readers, shaped your perception of the novel over time?

    MB: The response was very positive from both readers and critics, and that made me so happy. It went much better than I had ever dared to hope. The series was sold directly to fourteen countries and made it possible for me to continue writing. Since it was a gamble when I quit my job at TV4 to write, it was an incredible relief and luxury to be able to continue writing full-time. I have released eight books since then and take all constructive criticism to heart so I can improve my craft, and of course, I have developed both as a person and as a writer since then. Reading experiences and reviews are subjective, someone loves a book and someone else hates the same book and I love them all!

    UL: You worked at Swedish channel TV4 before becoming an author, how did it feel to return to the channel, this time as a participant in the show The Traitors?

    MB: Completely different. Working on or watching a show like The Traitors is nothing like actually being one of the participants-it’s like night and day. Even though I was prepared for it to be a tough game, it turned out to be much more psychologically demanding than I had imagined. Reality quickly became isolated, and even though I knew and understood intellectually that it was “just” a game, it still felt like it was about life and death. It was very interesting to see and experience my own and other people’s behavior in such a special situation and group, not to mention the group dynamics!

    UL: Ellen Tamm, your character, works as a reporter at TV4. Has your own experience in front of the camera inspired any new developments or insights that you plan to explore in the next book about her?

    MB: Being falsely accused and what that does to a person. When we watch interrogations and interviews with suspected perpetrators and they can’t answer all the questions directly or give vague answers, it is often instinctively interpreted as if they are guilty. My experience in The Traitors made me realize how difficult it is to defend yourself against unreasonable accusations when you are mistrusted. Ellen Tamm will definitely be digging deeper into this.

    UL: What was the inspiration behind your new novel If One Falls, All Fall? Did any particular events, ideas, or themes inspire you more during the writing process?

    MB: In If One Falls, All Fall, I wanted to explore the modern spy-what kind of people infiltrate our societies and live seemingly ordinary lives among us. It could be a colleague, a neighbor, or even the person you are married to. I wanted to try to understand how someone, year after year, can live their life as someone else, lie to everyone, make friends and have a family? What is the driving force behind it? How do they manage it?

    UL: If One Falls, All Fall is launched exklusively as an audiobook before being published in hardback this fall, what is your relationship to audiobooks? Do you have favorite books or genres that you specifically like to listen to?

    MB: The audiobook is the most popular format in Sweden. Most of my “readers” now listen to my books. I myself alternate between reading and listening. They are two different experiences. Some books work better in audio format and others the opposite. When it comes to audiobooks, I mostly listen to nonfiction, biographies, and life stories-preferably narrated by the authors themselves.

    UL: I’ve heard that you’re afraid of the dark, do you often draw from your own fears in your writing?

    MB:Absolutely, I always write about what scares me. Writing is a kind of therapy, a way to confront my fears  and ghosts, get to know them, and try to understand them.

    UL: Which novels or authors have been most influential to your writing style and the themes you explore? Do you find yourself returning to specific works during your creative process?

    MB: Michael Connelly was my great role model; now I am inspired by many different authors in all genres. I read so many books, and all of them teach me something new.

    UL: Could you share some insights into your creative process? When and how do you find you’re the most productive or inspired to write?

    MB: I always have inspiration to write; time is my biggest challenge. The best thing for me is to isolate myself and focus solely on my writing, really immersing myself in the story and the characters-but it’s hard to do that with small children and everything else in life. That’s why I usually write in the evenings and at night, when everyone else has gone to bed and there’s nothing to disturb me.

    UL: What’s next for you as a writer? Are there any new projects or ideas you’re excited to explore?

    MB: I’m working on the fourth book in The Killer series and have a lot of other exciting, secret projects in progress. Stay tuned!

    sunglasses Tom Ford

    bag STHLM MISC

    sunglasses Tom Ford

    bag STHLM MISC

    sunglasses Tom Ford
    sunglasses Tom Ford

  • Between Touch and Tension: A Conversation with Anna Camner

    Written by Natalia Muntean

    “I’m not a creative person, I just like to paint,” says Anna Camner. A paradoxical statement that is bound to raise eyebrows, considering how Camner’s work vibrates with tension. For Camner, painting is an act of continuous distillation, of “narrowing it down to what feels meaningful,” the Swedish artist obsessing over miniature details and labouring until “there are no question marks anywhere.” While Camner believes “it’s a human need to be creative,” her process is far from effortless. Even after decades, it remains “extremely frustrating,” demanding monastic focus, a surrender to a “trance-like state of mind” she achieves through music.

    Camner’s canvases are defined by contradictions - control and abandonment, the synthetic and organic, the weight of light and the lightness of touch - a duality she will explore in her 2025 exhibition, ‘Weight of Light.’

    Natalia Muntean: Early in your career, you painted hyper-detailed Gothic flora and fauna - bats, rats, poisonous plants. Now, your work is more abstracted, almost scientific. Was this shift intentional, or an organic shedding of layers? And what has it taught you about your artistic identity?
    Anna Camner:     Shedding of layers captures it very well. I always had this urge to paint, but when I was young, it was more difficult. I didn’t have my voice yet, so I painted what was around me. I grew up outside Stockholm and spent a lot of time in the forest by the house, walking around, looking at little plants and stuff. For the first years I started painting, I was painting zoomed-in little leaves, plants and details of things happening in nature. With time, old patterns and art historical baggage have gradually fallen away, and I am going in a more personal direction. Now I like to look forward, into the future. I’m much more curious about the future than looking back into my childhood, or art history, or what other artists have done. Over the past twenty years, the process has become less about arriving at a fixed identity, I guess, and more about allowing things to evolve. Patterns emerge, but they do so slowly and without any set destination.

    NM: Why and when did this shift happen?
    AC:     I’m not sure. I started to sneak in plastic at some point into the nature images - little bits of used plastic, or used condoms, into nature. I realised it was more interesting. Then I started doing plastic with bits of nature on it, like it had been lying outside and had little things stuck to it. It was a gradual transition, and I’m not sure why. It’s just a lot more interesting to try and figure out what’s going to happen in the future, especially with things changing so fast.

    NM: Where do you get inspiration?
    AC:     The work itself is like an ongoing dialogue with myself. It's continuous, a little bit like one painting after the other. Sometimes I always go back, like 10 paintings, and I want to return to certain topics, certain patterns. I like it when it's more chaotic, I guess. But with some sort of a sense of order. But you can never predict what that order would be like. I've done those patterns every two years, maybe. Sometimes I return to some themes I've always been working with, and sometimes I find new directions.

    NM: Why do you think you go back to themes you've explored and to older paintings?
    AC:     I don't feel like I'm done. I can keep exploring it because I still find it interesting for the same reasons I always have.

    NM: Do you feel you need to excavate it until there's nothing more to find?
    AC:     No, I can build on it. I can keep building on it.

    NM: You work with this tension, the relationship between natural and synthetic materials - do these materials serve as a metaphor for human emotions or desires?
    AC:    The layers on the bodies and faces amplify or hide gestures and expressions. I like to try to hide the obvious and expose the hidden. Hopefully, the viewer wants to fill in the blank spaces with their interpretations. Due to some sensory differences, the contrast between textures has become a bit of a fixation for me, and this finds its way into my work. When I paint, I often imagine the feeling of touching them. It’s like an obsession, especially with plastics and soft materials. I want to observe and show the different types openly and without assumptions. For me, materials are equal, with no hierarchy between natural and synthetic. It’s all part of the same world.

    NM: You also explore touch, both as sensation and communication. How do your paintings translate the intangible experience of touch into visual form?
    AC:     A painting often starts with imagining how it would feel to touch a material. The layers of different materials become an intensified skin, offering a boosted sense of connection. I play a lot with gloves because hands are very expressive. Facial expressions can be a little overwhelming, but gestures with hands and body language are quite expressive. Especially with gloves, because if you drape something and have layers on the face or body, it’s both hiding parts but also enhancing gestures.

    NM: Do you paint your own hands, hands that you know or do you just imagine them?
    AC:     Often my own. I have gloves of different materials in my studio - soft gloves, latex, different colours and some masks. I work with that.

    NM: After avoiding painting during Art School, what made you return to it?
    AC:     In school, the noise of opinions made it hard for me to stay grounded. Painting requires a kind of vulnerability, and the criticism at school felt too intrusive at the time, so I stopped painting entirely. But I did lots of other stuff - animation, video, everything else but painting. As soon as I graduated, I started doing it again. And then I had to kind of start from the beginning because it was five years of not painting at all, and I had grown up during that time. So it was like starting from scratch, in a way.

    Teaching art feels uncomfortable to me, for similar reasons, I believe that finding a voice in painting can’t be explained in steps.

    NM: That must have been difficult, to have that pause of five years of not doing it.
    AC:     I learned other things - art history, art theory, and took some philosophy classes. Some good came out of it - I probably became a little more aware, but also more anxious. The art world is so anxious about themes, contexts, and political ideas - what’s the whole point behind art? It can be a little crippling to have to relate to that all the time.

    NM: Do you feel that pressure nowadays that your art has to be political?
    AC:     No, I’m not pro this “instruction manual” thing some people claim you need to approach art with. I don’t agree with that at all. I think you could approach it like people approach music - we all have a vast reference bank in our heads. I wish more people in the arts would trust their feelings when experiencing it.

    NM: What do you think is the role of art nowadays?
    AC:    I’m not sure. It’s entertainment, of course - entertainment for grown-ups, but there’s not so much fun in it. It’s always themes and trends, and it’s not a free space. I look at fashion documentaries, and there’s so much creativity, playfulness and freedom. I don’t get that feeling often from art. You look at a piece and realise exactly why it’s approved - it’s the right theme, it ticks all the boxes. That’s not so much fun, I think. But maybe it will change.

    NM: Your alla prima (wet-on-wet) technique requires both precision and spontaneity, and you’ve also said painting is about “surrendering control.” How do control and surrender coexist in your practice?
    AC:     The space between intuition and intention is a good place for painting; a lot can happen when that balance clicks. I often picture the motif in a painting like a perfect wave coming at me. The bigger and more technically difficult it is, the more fun it becomes, like trying to stay balanced on a surfboard. I'm not a great painter, and the effort is usually beyond my skill level, but when it's just slightly out of reach, I must focus so much on staying upright that my mind stops asking “why” and just paints. That’s a kind of freedom for me. Painting with your brain isn’t a good thing for me.

    NM: But how do you manage to silence it?
    AC:     It’s a combination of music and making it a little too difficult. Sometimes it feels like I can’t do this. And I do it anyway. That’s the most fun - when it’s that hard and you take a break from yourself. You’re in the painting instead of overthinking.

    NM: Can you tell me a little bit about Black Iris and how it came to be, and how it influences your work?
    AC:     I started it together with my husband a few years ago, during the pandemic. I think it could be a good thing, working together in a way. There's such a strong emphasis on the ideas behind art: politics, social commentary, identity, historical context, and art theory. The visual experience often takes a back seat. With Black Iris, and the symbol of the wide-open pupil, I wanted to suggest that it's okay to look at art with an open mind, and without following any provided manual. The theme of all the exhibitions has been perception, seeing, and just experiencing it. We wanted to bring a sense of freedom when experiencing art.

    I’m not sure it has affected me a lot, but I’ve had social anxiety and been very shy in the past, really scared of making contact. It was a big step for me to reach out to these artists. I knew a lot of them, but not all, and I admire all of them. Also, to think about all parts of making an exhibition, it was a good lesson to learn.

    NM: Where do you see it going in the future?
    AC:     For now, it’s just an expensive hobby for me and my husband. Maybe we’ll have to think about whether we can continue, but if we find the right space, maybe we’ll do another exhibition, but it takes quite a lot of time for us to do these things.

    NM: How do you pick the artists that are part of it?
    AC:     We picked everyone when we started, and we haven’t taken in new ones. We wanted to choose artists who have been consistent - a lot of people do one show and have 15 minutes of fame, but not many continue doing good work. We wanted some consistency because that’s kind of difficult in the art world.

    NM: Why is it important for you to disrupt this traditional gallery setting?
    AC:     Not sure I wanted to disrupt it. I've always been really happy working with galleries. I've always done that, and it's been a really good collaboration for me. But there could be other ways of showing art. Gallery spaces with white walls are so beautiful and neutral. But it's also refreshing to put together an exhibition in a rough, worn-down space because it brings in a different kind of energy that interacts with the work visually. And it’s been fun to work with spaces that have been closed to the public, or at least have not been opened in an art context before.  It's fun to play with that. The idea was to have complete freedom - you don’t have to work with certain topics, and it doesn’t have to be commercial. We sell pieces, but we don’t take a cut. We’re just trying to create some exhibitions that are memorable or at least enjoyable. The art world can be so serious, like, where did all the fun go? It's fun to do a little breathing space where art can be fun. That was the idea - not to take it so seriously but to create a space of freedom for people.

    NM: Last year, you had two exhibitions—one at Liljevalchs (“Cosmology”), and one at Loyal. Can you tell me a little about those?
    AC:     I also had others in Japan, Los Angeles, and New York. It was a very busy year. The Liljevalchs show was a group show curated by Joanna Sandell and Emil Ivedal. I showed about 11 big oil paintings. It was very feminine—a lot of pink, female bodies.

    NM: Do you paint more female bodies?
    AC:     Yes, because it's a sensitive area, I guess. I identify as a woman, so for me, it’s natural. In a way, they’re self-portraits, mostly. It wouldn’t make sense for me to paint otherwise.

    NM: You have an upcoming solo show with the Ståhl Collection in 2025. Can you share any hints about the new direction of this work?
    AC:     The exhibition is called The Weight of Light. It’s a series of abstract and figurative oil paintings. The motifs are a lot of clay, eyes, silver costumes and odd shapes from my mind. The aim is to catch weightless stuff, like light. The opening is on August 23, and the exhibition runs through January 2026.

    NM: Having exhibited in different countries, Japan, the US and Sweden, how do these contexts affect the reception of your art?
    AC:     The art world is surprisingly similar everywhere - same trends, same references. It’s more fun to show abroad because visiting places is inspiring. But the art world is so similar. It’s crazy how identical the dialogue is.

    NM: Last question: What’s a question about your work you’ve never been asked but wish you were?
    AC:     Oh, that’s difficult. Maybe about my brush obsession. Painters tend to be crazy about pigments, but for me, it’s brushes. I could create the illusion of any colour - colours are just an illusion depending on what’s next to them. But with brushes, you can’t work with a bad one. You have to have the right tools.

    photography Sandra Myhrberg

  • photography Sandra Myhrberg
    fashion Jahwanna Berglundy
     

    all clothing garment by

    necklace Izabel Display

    Shake It Out, An Interview with Vinchy Chan

    Written by Maya Avram by Sandra Myhrberg

    While creative talent and a discerning eye are stable stakes to succeeding in fashion, strategy is equally crucial to establishing a sustainable career and one most industry players unfortunately lack. One reason is that fashion designers are becoming increasingly individualistic, and consequently, reluctant to ask for support. This starts as early as fashion school, where educators encourage emerging talent to see themselves as bitter competitors rather than potential collaborators; it goes on to impact small-scale businesses who can’t seem to handle their admin (cult-favourites like Y/Project, Christopher Kane and The Vampire’s Wife have been forced to shut down in recent years.)

    garment by’s premise, therefore, is a simple yet promising one: entrust the business side of things to the startup’s co-founders, former Strategy Consultant Vinchy Chan and Operations Officer Ana Ciobanu, and focus instead on designing the ‘Icons’, the platform’s range of timeless clothing essentials. Each Icon piece is created with consideration of research data and insight, and ethically produced by garment by’s network of vetted suppliers and manufacturers in China. The result? A thoughtful collection of bespoke garments meant to last a lifetime.

    I caught up with Chan ahead of the spring launch of the ‘Love Shirt’, celebrating the noblest emotion of all.

    Maya Avram: This issue’s theme is ‘Alchemy of Fates,’ or how we break down conforms to build something new that realigns us with the right path. Do you feel that resonates with garment by’s mission?
    Vinchy Chan: 100 percent. As an outsider to fashion, I see things with a fresh perspective, including practices that don’t serve us anymore. I respect that big brands have to make sure, in this downturn, that they can protect their revenue in line with the matrixes they know are going to sell, but that is just adhering to conform. It tells us that fashion is about creativity, but also that there are many implicit rules. As a business, garment by is ready to break away from those rules and those legacy systems that don’t serve us anymore.

    MA: What does your development process look like, and how does it challenge those systems?
    VC:     One of the biggest problems of the current system is overstock. Stock is planned and produced usually a year ahead, and at the six-month mark, you need to put in orders with your sourcing and production partners, which many brands do without any insight or data. So they often overproduce and create merchandise that is killing their business. 70 percent of designer labels’ cash gets tied up in stock they never know if they’ll be able to sell. That cost is priced in for consumers — ever wonder why a designer shirt costs £800? Imagine if we didn’t have to pay that premium. You could shave 30 to 50 per cent off the buying price, which is great for consumers in this economic downturn. Not to mention that stock is the biggest environmental polluter, with 30 per cent of overstock going to landfill. Consumers nowadays are more and more aware of those issues and the impact of their buying behaviours. That’s why we adopted an on-demand model, to empower designer labels to only produce what’s sold. We are now able to deliver the product within four weeks, but hopefully, with tech and data innovation, we will eventually be able to deliver it within two weeks.

    MA: How did you come to create the Icon collection?
    VC:     The Icon collection came from market insight. We are looking into each clothing category and finding that offering gap; whether it is a product feature, a style, the wearer’s experience or the pricing. And through that data, you ensure the commerciality and practicality of the clothes before you even go into production. When we talk to designers, they really appreciate that insight because they often lack the bandwidth to think about what can sell that also intersects with what they enjoy designing.

    MA: Is there an active dialogue between you and the designers? How much of the relationship is a push-pull?
    VC:     We come from a very consumer insight-driven background and try to bring that value to the designers and co-create those pieces together. Before even going to production, we make sure that we have good enough learning, and keep building upon it. After we created the first iteration of our first Icon [a lush wool and cashmere blend coat MA], we realised the fabric we sourced didn’t meet the needs of our consumers. So we quickly iterated a second version using a new fabric because we knew there was an unmet need there. This way of working was anchored in when I worked in product innovation but lacked in fashion.

    MA: How do you find the designers you work with?
    VC:     There’s an urgency to our mission because the whole idea was to create a business infrastructure to help designers create core collections. We targeted designers who sadly had to close down their businesses in recent years but whose respective communities are craving for their comeback. Our ultimate goal, though, is to engage a bigger pool of designers, whether it is an emergent designer or a more established designer, award-winning designers or household names. We are ready to connect.

    MA: Sounds like quite the support system.
    VC:     We did lots of research into how to run a designer label. The leanest operation will have at least three people: a technician for the fabric and prototyping, a production and a PR and Marketing manager, and, of course, the designers themselves. But with that structure, you’re not maximising the business opportunity to launch because you lack insight, and it’s also hard to curate supply resources you trust. When I went to Guangzhou, which is the biggest textile market in the world, it was overwhelming; there was no way I could know what kind of fabric was where and which was the right one to source without our trusted suppliers. So prototyping, fabric sourcing, and product development, these are the pain points we’re trying to streamline for every size of designer. It should be super easy from the moment you create your collection with us.

    MA: It will be interesting to see how your operation will develop into a cohesive wardrobe. On that note, have you defined the garment by consumer?
    VC:     At the beginning, we thought about targeting urban professionals who appreciate the fine things in life. So those working in law or consultancy while pursuing an urban lifestyle, with adjacent interests like fine dining, art, music and culture, very well travelled — the cool beans. When the orders came through they all fit that exact persona, which was a nice surprise, but we still have a lot to do to understand them in a more nuanced way. Our on-demand model is quite new to this target audience, and we are still on a journey to make this the norm to shop good quality, unique designer items, and scale it to more audiences that could buy with
    us in the future.

    MA: Would you say you’re on a constant learning curve? What lessons have you learnt from the Icon coat launch, and what questions are still left unanswered?
    VC:     The most important thing we learnt from the launch was the winning formula for the Icons. Each one needs to fit three criteria: first, an Icon should really fit you. It’s not just sizing, but how it looks and feels. The second one is form, i.e., the performance of our materials, because at the end of the day, the fabric is what is directly touching your skin, and the fabric is what brings a silhouette to life. We saw that with the coat; when we went from our first fabric choice to the second one, there was a different type of energy that made us say, “That’s what everybody needs.” The last criterion is design. An Icon has to be unique and speak to the identity
    of the designer while also being versatile and timeless. It should go with every piece in your wardrobe so you as an individual can style it however way you want. That is the sweet spot for our cohort, which we translate to an internal framework when we talk to designers for collaboration. In terms of what more we want to learn, it is a better understanding of our target audiences, their shopping journeys and what barriers we need to break through to create value around the on-demand model. For them to think two to four weeks is actually worth waiting for quality, unique pieces. That’s a psychology exercise, understanding how to become present in their lives and offer them more than just functional value — but creating an emotional connection.

    MA: Tell me about the Love Shirt.
    VC:     The Love Shirt was created by a real couple who met when they were studying fashion design at London College of Fashion. Their master’s became a love story, and now they’re married with young kids. They live in Shanghai but still come back to London a lot, so it’s an interesting backstory to the brief we gave them — to create something that speaks to love. So the shirt comes in two styles that you can wear with your loved one, whether it’s your friend, partner, or whoever you can share it with. It comes in white and black, the most classic colourway so you can mix and match it with your own wardrobe or a loved one’s. This way, it also speaks to self-love in the context of dressing yourself with something you absolutely adore and feel comfortable in, and which you can carry over to different occasions. I feel personally about this theme because it allowed my boyfriend Jakob and me to take part in the launch campaign, we were both wearing the same shirt. It meant a lot to create that memory together, which lends the product such emotional value for us and for the designers who created the shirt. It resonates with the most beautiful thing we want to talk about — the world needs love right now, right?

    MA: Always. On that note, what excites you about the future?
    VC:     I’m very excited to see some changes in the industry, of which hopefully we will be one of the drivers, and I’m most excited about working with more designers. I’m very inspired by design as a profession, especially when I see exhibitions like the amazing one about Alaïa. His work, and his story are super inspiring, and I feel like designers don’t have those stages anymore. Hopefully, our channel can bring those beautiful stories to the right audiences and communities. Last but not least, I’m very excited to grow garment by. We have an ambitious target to scale by 2027, which is when the on-demand model is projected to become one of the most prevalent models, and we want to be a leader in that space. So that means growing this business, growing the infrastructure, growing our tier-one suppliers, growing our team, developing digital solutions; there’s a lot on the agenda.

    text Maya Avram
    photography Sandra Myhrberg
    fashion Jahwanna Berglund
    hair and makeup Elva Ahlbin
    model Inti el Meskine / Fifth Models

Pages