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Swedish footwear brand Gram launched their new web site this week. The site will act as both an online show room and retail space featuring their products, as well as a way to profile their many many collaborations in the works. The brand's been building buzz in their native Sweden, and lately internationally due to their innovative take on classic footwear. I was able to talk to Alexis Holm and Anna Stenvi, founders and creators of Gram. Take a look at my profile on them below, as well as some advanced pictures of their recent collections...

Names: Alexis Holm, Anna Stenvi                               
Occupations: Founders
Location: Stockholm/Hong Kong
 

Tell us - how did the Gram collection originate?
 
We blame organic growth for most of it. Started off as a modest 3 style collection in spring 2006 with only denim fabric and then mutated from there. No grand scheme at the helm, just two people doing what they think is good and true. Maybe we’ll bring back the denim when we get nostalgic…
 
You recently launched a collaboration with 'Our Legacy' on a collection of limited edition shoes sold at such retail posts as Blackbird, Beams and Aplace. What can we expect from this collaboration?
 
Jockum and Cristopher at Our Legacy are nice guys, they wanted a classic plimsoll for their AW08 collection, and we saw the chance to make a luxury edition of an often cheapened type of footwear. The result is great. Classy and relaxed, true calf leather matched with dry waxed cotton from British Millerain. We topped it off with an all white box, individual shoe bags, brush and shoe horn.
 
GramSE is your premium line of shoes. What design differences do you see between Gram and GramSE?
 
Well, we of course see more similarities than differences, but when viewed side by side it is obvious that we are dealing with two totally different  types of footwear. GramSE has a lot of basketball sneaker references that gram totally lacks, such as dampening and cushioned ankle support. In my mind as a designer what I set out to do with the gramSE was to create something that would have no equal, it is not a tired remake of a Dunk, it doesn’t utilize generic outsoles used by a trillion other brands before. This was built from the ground up, to be different, comfortable, indestructible and uncompromising. Kim Jones immediately snatched up a pair and proclaimed them to be his favourite sneaker, which is a good verdict considering his knowledge of shoes. Kanye West also keeps a pair in his closet for special occasions. And the beauty of it all is that when they are gone, they will stay gone, there won’t be any re-runs or comebacks for this shoe, when the last pair leaves our warehouse we will be kissing it goodbye. So get yours before it’s too late. Available internationally via www.gramstore.com
 
Your new project with GramSE contains and Danish knitbrand S.N.S Herning was a limited quantity of knitted shoelaces. How did this idea come about?
 
We were talking to Sören at S.N.S. about ways to use knitted fabric on a shoe, which to be honest is a pretty difficult thing to do. But then he mentions that he’s got an old shoelace machine in his little studio factory in Denmark. That’s basically how it all started, and ended up with Anna from Gram travelling there personally with her mother as helper to knit the 500 meters of colourful lace needed for this collaboration. We used the exact same colours and yarn as Sören uses for his garments. It’s a 100% virgin wool from Italy which enormous tensile strength and durability. It’s really this kind of stuff that you live for, collaborations, not for the sake of money, but for friendship and exploration. Anna also had the strange idea to sell the laces through an enormous 5 foot vending machine that uses 50mm clear plastic balls, this sounded absurd at first, but looking at it now standing there in our press office, I guess it was a pretty good plan after all.  
 
You recently mentioned that you have another side project coming up - a collaboration with Annika Berger at Skyward (whose stuff sells at places such as Seven NY and Loveless in Tokyo). What can we expect from this collaboration?
 
We love Skyward. Annika Berger is one of the coolest girls on the planet and we are very lucky to be collaborating with her, twice actually. She was curious to see what her enormous screen printed patterns would look like on a shoe, and frankly so were we. But since this was Skyward I didn’t want to just print it on some plain fabric, so 4 different materials were carefully selected to give a unique look to the 4 different options. We think the result is amazing and my personal favourite is the 385g in beige lamb suede with her folded creased paper print on top. The transparent sole also sets these apart from the normal gram range. Production and distribution of the gram x SWD range will be scarce to say the least, only a handful of stores including Shine/Hong Kong, Glossy/Shanghai, Doshaburi/Tokyo and Aplace/Stockholm are currently confirmed, with Colette and Seven NY still pending. Regardless of where you reside you will always be able to buy them from www.gramstore.com  
 
This week, you launched Gram Store (www.gramstore.com) - which will focus on limited products from your collection. Is this a way to extend the Gram brand worldwide?
 
Of course. This is more a way of being able to show Gram as a complete brand. An opportunity for us to not only show of a coherent range of products, but also to put out anything we see fit. Sometimes the things we develop will be too expensive or experimental for our retailers, and gramstore.com will act as both showroom and retail space for these creations. Our main focus will be the collabs, one-offs, Beta products and weird accessories, but we will of course also carry some of the styles from our more common range. We ship internationally with subsidized freight costs so it’s a great way for people who have no physical retailers close by to get hold of Gram products.
 
Whats up next for Gram?
 
Where to start... You’ll see plenty of new products pop up for AW09, for SS09 expect mostly small flashes of new developments on the webshop and at selected retailers. More collabs in the works of course. Oh and socks, really nice socks, made just outside of Paris. People perception of gram is about to change, trust me.

This post is from We Are The Market.