Photo: Lena and Johanna
Tell us about 7EAST, how did it all start?
Both mother Lena and daughter Johanna have a lifelong interest in jewelry, fashion, and design. In addition, Lena also has 30 years of experience in the fashion industry, as the founder of the fashion store Nicco in Halmstad. The beginning for 7EAST came when Lena felt that she did not find the accessories she was looking for for her store at existing brands.
She wanted to find a complete accessory brand for women and men with shawls, jewelry, ties, bow ties, and handkerchiefs. It should be easy to make purchases and it should be a brand that helped stores, rather than compete with them. A list of requirements that none of her suppliers could live up to. It made her want to do something of her own. Together, Lena and Johanna traveled around the world to gather inspiration and in China, they got in touch with a factory that could manufacture their designs in small quantities. This was the beginning for 7EAST. Today, 7EAST is available in several countries in Europe with over 250 retailers.
Tell us more about your products and the market you are addressing.
Today, 7EAST is a well-developed accessory brand with jewelry and shawls for both women and men, as well as ties, bow ties, and handkerchiefs. We mainly target fashion stores where our products function as additional sales and as an extra service to the customer. But lifestyle stores are also a big part of our retailers.
What do you think is the most important thing to stand out in the market today? And how have you adapted to it?
After the pandemic, we believe that everyone knows that the most important thing you can do to stand out is to cooperate, take care of your customers and give them a really good service. We are a small family business and we believe this is our absolute greatest strength, it means that we can provide personal service to both our small and our absolute largest retailers. For us, all retailers are equally important.
Photo: Some of the beautiful jewelry
The issue of sustainability is high on the agenda, how is it in your industry and how do you work with sustainability?
The issue of sustainability is and should take a big space right now, change is needed and we are actively working to reduce our climate impact. We make our jewelry from durable materials that can be worn year after year. We believe that what someone buys should be worn and loved year after year. We do not encourage any consumerism and want the product to be chosen with care. We are also constantly reviewing our material choices and from AW22, our shawls are
Photo: Lena and Johanna
Tell us about 7EAST, how did it all start?
Both mother Lena and daughter Johanna have a lifelong interest in jewelry, fashion and design. In addition, Lena also has 30 years of experience in the fashion industry, as the founder of the fashion store Nicco in Halmstad. The starting shot for 7EAST came when Lena felt that she did not find the accessories she was looking for for her store at existing brands.
She wanted to find a complete accessory brand for women and men with both shawls, jewelry, ties, bow ties and handkerchiefs. It would be easy to make purchases and it would be a brand that helped stores rather than compete with them. A list of requirements that none of her suppliers could live up to. It made her want to do something of her own. Together, Lena and Johanna traveled around the world to gather inspiration and in China they got in touch with a factory that could manufacture their designs in small quantities. This was the starting shot for 7EAST. Today, 7EAST is available in several countries in Europe with over 250 retailers.
Tell us more about your products and the market you are addressing.
Today, 7EAST is a well-developed accessory brand with jewelry and shawls for both women and men, as well as ties, bow ties and handkerchiefs. We mainly target fashion stores where our products function as additional sales and as an extra service to the customer. But lifestyle stores are also a big part of our retailers.
What do you think is the most important thing to stand out in the market today? And how have you adapted to it?
After the pandemic, we believe that everyone knows that the most important thing you can do to stand out is to cooperate, to take care of your customers and give them a really good service. We are a small family business and we believe this is our absolute strongest strength, it means that we can provide personal service to both our small and our absolute largest retailers. For us, all retailers are equally important.
Photo: Some of the beautiful jewelry
The issue of sustainability is high on the agenda, how is it in your industry and how do you work with sustainability? The issue of sustainability is and should take a big place right now, change is needed and we are actively working to reduce our climate impact. We make our jewelery from durable material that can be worn year after year. We believe that what someone buys should be worn and loved year after year. We do not encourage any consumerism but want the product to be chosen with care. We are also constantly reviewing our material choices and from AW22, our shawls are, for example, made of mostly natural materials to reduce the use of plastic. For the past 2 years, we have also moved part of our production to Europe to reduce freight emissions. Most of what we ship from Asia we send by boat.
We have no sales and urge our dealers to do the same. To reduce waste, we have a zero-waste goal, which means that we partly redo jewelry that is not sold in our RE: used collection and that we reuse most of our packaging material such as plastic for jewelry and shawls, as well as cartons and packaging.
If you were to look into the future, what do you think the development looks like for the jewelry industry?
We see a very bright future. It feels like we have found our niche where we see great potential to grow. The jewelry and accessories industry feels like a living industry and over time, jewelry has always had a central place in fashion and been a way of expressing oneself. We see no tendency for this to change.
7EAST on social media
Instagram: @seveneast
Facebook: SEVEN/EAST