Our favourite pieces from the Swedish brand’s exclusive capsule collection, plus how to wear them.

The career of fashion designer might sound rather nice and leisurely to most people. You imagine such individuals blithely and freely creating in their studio, hanging out with their glamorous friends and spending their evenings at fabulous parties. And while that all might be at least partly true, there is another side to the whole thing: they’re under constant time pressure, with the need to produce a brand new collection every six months (at least), and sharp cut-off points for when designs need to be delivered, so they can then be produced. “Each season the collection has to be ready at a certain date and anything after that is lost,” write CMMN SWDN’s designers Ms Emma Hedlund and Mr Saif Bakir, over email. “It can be very frustrating as you feel so inspired and have so much more to create or would like to develop if you only had more time.”

This is where CMMN SWDN’s new, exclusive capsule collection with MR PORTER comes in. An extension of the Swedish brand’s AW17 collection, it has allowed the designers to dwell that little bit longer on the season’s warm, 1970s-tinged palette and vintage sportswear shapes, as well as to provide a bit of a preview of what’s to come in SS18. Scroll down to discover our favourite pieces from the collection, which is new to MR PORTER this week.

The slightly exaggerated funnel neck of this wool-blend sweater is characteristic of CMMN SWDN’s quirky charm, as is the subtly retro off-white colour of the contrasting half-zip fastening. Throw it on over a shirt or T-shirt and wear it with a pair of the brand’s generously cut “Jay” pleated trousers.

There’s a lovely warmth to this grandad-collar shirt, which has been printed to give it an ombre effect. As the colour deepens towards the hemline, it will look particularly good with a pair of dark coloured trousers, such as these black sweatpants, which come trimmed with eye-catching satin side stripes.

As much as CMMN SWDN is known for its distinct aesthetic, its designers are very much concerned with the tactility of each piece, a prime example of this fact being the above silk shirt. For the capsule, they write “we wanted to use materials that you could almost feel when browsing on MR PORTER. The texture of raw silk against your skin… you know that recognisable feeling. It’s like a melody you’ve heard or a scent you’ve once felt.” We’d advise wearing it with the “Boris” denim jacket – a worn-in design that has a slightly more relaxed feel thanks to its wide camp-collar opening.