The Cords & Co – the world ́s first premium corduroy brand for men and women, will mark its debut within the fashion world on August 24, 2017. The brand will open 6 Mono flagship stores in fashion capitals around the globe including New York, Paris, London, Los Angeles and Stockholm, while opening a global online shop and collaborating with wholesale partners on 20 markets.

Founded in Stockholm in 2016, The Cords & Co is the world ́s first and only brand to focus it’s collections solely on corduroy. The Cords & Co will provide fashion loving men and women with premium corduroy products with an aim to be the corduroy alternative to denim.

“The Cords & Co is created by a passionate group of people united by a shared love of corduroy. By exploring new ways to work with corduroy in our Stockholm design studio, highlighting it’s long but little known history, and working closely with a carefully curated group of collaborative partners and cultural tastemakers in each of our flagship city locations around the world, we’re excited to share our unique story of a fabric everyone has a connection to, yet no other brand has dedicated themselves entirely to it” says Omar Varts, CEO.

The launch on August 24 will be accompanied by the openings of the two Stockholm stores. The two stores, 302 and 334 square feet each, will be located on Åsögatan 132, Södermalm and Stureplan 19. The rest of the stores will open on August 31 in Soho New York, Abbot Kinney L.A. Soho London and Le Marais Paris.

The Stockholm stores’ concept is developed in collaboration with Swedish architects In Praise of Shadows and is a mix of skate culture and more high end fashion. The design is built on a palette of materials with a clear natural material expression. The materials are arranged to enhance the spatial characteristics of the store spaces and with reference to the vales of the corduroy the materials are worked and arranged to create a composition of lines in different scales.

Even though not yet launched, the Cords & Co has already teamed up with various high profile and diverse collaborative partners such as Alpha Industries, Eastpak, and DJ Harvey to name just a few.

“Opening 6 flagship stores in global fashion capitals, as well as launching shop online and teaming up with several established and influential brands and people, pretty much explains what we are aiming for – to have people all over the world rediscover their love for corduroy!”, says Mikael Söderlindh, Founder.

I will never forget Way out west 2012, standing on one of the infinite rooftop parties, when the crowd suddenly went silent. One of the hosts had gotten hold of a microphone and, as if announcing someone’s death said, “We have just received news that Frank Ocean has cancelled his performance tonight.” The announcement was followed by a loud, collective cry of disappointment and actual sadness. For the rest of the party, small talk and speculation about Frank’s health and happiness was the given ice-breaker. And those who had missed the viral success of Channel Orange had become curious about who this Frank Ocean character was where wondering for the last time. Over the following years, Channel Orange became a modern classic - and t-shirts reading, “FRANK OCEAN IF YOU’RE READING THIS, WHERE’S THE ALBUM” were printed in anticipation.

Since then, we’ve watched him grow and conquer so much, developing into a truly original presence in the industry. The minutes before he enters the stage we turn into the same crowd we were five years ago, “the Way Out West audience” is who we are and we were let down once before. Frank Ocean at WOW in 2017 has a parable of the prodigal son vibe from start. As if as long as he appears and stays with us for a while everything and anything will be forgiven, and we’ll be ready to shower him in all the love we’ve stored up. And he does show up. And he shows us he’s vulnerable, thanking us for supporting him while he gets the hang of it, playing to an audience again. He stops the music for do-overs a few times and comments on his own voice breaking. Wearing headphones, and a white T-shirt with a quote by the English comedian/actor Marcus Brigstocke on the back that read “Computer games don’t affect kids, I mean, if Pac-Man had affected us as kids, we’d all be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive electronic music”. Frank Ocean has more than once before sported statement T-shirts (hence the T-shirt jokes from his fans), like the famous one that read “WHY BE RACIST, SEXIST, HOMOPHOBIC, OR TRANSPHOBIC WHEN YOU COULD JUST BE QUIET”, and the time he stepped out next to Kendall Jenner in a plain-looking striped one that just had “maintain the mystery” printed on his chest.
And the mystery remains intact as he keeps gazing down at his Nikes, but we really are all there to support him, grateful and humble that the introvert genius managed to defy whatever demons he’s been up against. Like typical soccer moms, we already know what he’s capable of and will oversee any mishap. But we hardly need to, the music and his voice that everyone has a private relationship with, puts us under his spell.

Ocean sticks mostly to songs from the 2016 BLONDE album, consisting of mainly soft atmospheric keyboard tunes, and then breaks it off with a few older hits. Singing along to “Thinkin’ bout you”, an experience we were deprived of in 2012, really was the perfect team building experience for the audience on the festival’s first night. When whirling clouds in shifting colours are projected in the air above us, the universe that Frank’s body of work has created encircles us completely and I only wish he’d sang Pilot Jones at some point to ensure us that, “if I got a condo on a cloud, then I guess you can stay at my place”.