Story behind our newest collection

It’s been such a rollercoaster of positive feelings here at Lilja the Label. First we celebrated our 6th birthday, then released the news of our new factory in Guimarães, Portugal and just recently launched new collection for AW22. Taking a moment to thank all of you for your support throughout is the least we can do!

Today, we thought, we would take you on the journey of how the new AW22 collection came to be. We started brainstorming the overall feel and colors for this collection back in April. Although it might seem early, it is actually rather late for the general fashion cycle. For comparison, we’re already done with sampling for next summer’s collection. However, for this collection we wanted to wait a while to manufacture the entire collection at our new factory in Portugal. Good things take time, as they say! If you haven’t read about the move of our production to the European Union, check out the video on the bottom of this page or navigate to our Instagram to see some more BTS material!

For the new collection, we wanted to create something comfortable and neutral for the colder season. Our signature swimwear styles were an easy choice, but we also wanted to complete the collection with loungewear items and our first ever underwear collection.

After setting the general feel of the collection, our in-house designer Ella started drafting first technical sketches of the planned items. Patterns and measuring tables are also created during this time. In June were received the first physical samples and did a couple of fitting rounds. It’s of course important to make sure the items look great, but the fit and the feel is what counts in the end! We discussed some tweaks and alterations with our factory and were happy with the second samples we received shortly after. 

After the samples have been approved, it’s time to shoot the items, create product pages and all marketing and launch materials. We were lucky enough to combine the AW22 collection shoot with our latest factory visit in Portugal in September. Our lovely freelance photographer, Anna, took the time to shoot all of the items in two days with us. We were lucky to have three gorgeous local models to join us for the shoots, and the beautiful Portuguese landscapes definitely were working in our favour.

Returning to Finland, we rolled up our sleeves and started to prepare for the launch. Finally, on Tuesday the 18th of October we were able to launch all items. 

And soon it’s go time! Once the preorders are in, it’s ready to go into production. The amazing team at our factory works hard to make sure all items keep up to our standard. 

We can’t wait for you all to finally get the hands on your new Lilja the Label pieces! We hope you are just as excited as we are.