Välj språk
With such a polished store it should come as no surprise the people behind Aplace.com have a long history of working in the fashion business in Sweden. From magazines to trade fairs, their imprint on the Swedish fashion scene has been one of promoting creative, interesting fashion.
Kalle Tollmar started the company ODD Projects together with Tomas Rajnaj in 2004. While Tomas has now moved on, working as an art curator, Tomas’s brother Kristian has been involved since 2007.
Their first endeavour was a magazine simply called ODD, which saw the light in 2004. The first issue was dedicated to the expressions of street culture and it wasn’t until the second issue that they started to focus more directly on fashion.
– We liked the idea of the definitive in magazine production, Kalle Tollmar explains. You cannot change the content once it’s printed. Another thing we enjoyed about making a magazine was the feeling we got when the magazine came back from the printers. The smell! And of course taking the boat to Tallinn in Estonia where the printers were at. It was wild.
– The reception Odd magazine got was astonishing. It quickly became a favourite in the business, mainly because it was so overambitious, with excellent paper quality and unexpected packaging.
Shortly, Odd magazine morphed into Odd at large, a freely distributed, glossy magazine dedicated to fashion and culture. They made a point of setting a tone that wouldn’t be perceived as elitist, something they felt was a remnant from the 90s and still alienating many people from the so called hipster scene. By mixing reviews of opera with modern things and supplying every article with footnotes explaing the terms or references that people might not know about, they reached a wide audience, and in 2006 it received a prize for best niche magazine in Sweden.
Odd at large was made by people who rarely had had the opportunity to work professionally before and it became the focal point for a young, underground scene in Stockholm.
– It wasn’t something we planned, admits Kalle Tollmar. We couldn’t afford to involve older, thereby more expensive people, and at the same time we wanted to keep everything within a close-knit circle.
