Christoffer Lundman reached rare heights of success in fashion before he gave up and moved on.
He studied at the prestigious Central Saint Martins under the beloved design professor Louise Wilson. He mastered the craft of tailoring and landed big jobs at Burberry and Tom Ford, eventually arriving as the creative director at Tiger of Sweden. Then, six years ago, the joy he once felt disappeared. “I didn’t know if I liked it anymore,” says Lundman, now 48. “When you do 16 collections a year, there’s very little time to think. And when you’re working at companies where the merchandisers have a bigger say than you, it kills a lot of the fun.”
He walked away and took on other kinds of design work. A few years into his reprieve, Lundman found himself sketching in an Italian palazzo, and it occurred to him that he didn’t need to turn his back on fashion just because it had turned its back on him. “If you spend your life doing something, it’s your craft,” he says. “It’s what I know how to do. I had grown tired of the industry, and it made me think that maybe I should change my situation within the industry and work on my terms.” And thank God he did.
Shortly thereafter, Salon C. Lundman, now in its third season, began to take shape.
In 2023, Lundman presented the collection for the first time: three looks, 10 garments, to friends and industry colleagues in his hometown of Stockholm. He did a small production run and started a made-to-measure program. One of his earliest customers was Auralee designer Ryota Iwai. He bought six pieces, which he wore frequently back home in Tokyo. A multi-brand store buyer there took notice and bought Lundman’s entire remaining stock. “From there, it started snowballing,” Lundman says.
There are more than 10 pieces in the collection now, but it is by no means big. Everything is meticulously considered, from the shape of a field jacket sleeve that gently bends with the natural contour of the arm, to the cashmere sweaters that come with notched collars and cuffs, subtly nodding to how they might unravel with age. Shirts have wider-than-most plackets and collars that appear to have been cut off then reattached. These clothes are unique to the wearer. That’s the intimacy Lundman is seeking. “I wanted to create something that felt essential and tender and at the same time,” he says.
Lundman’s collection has a feeling of permanence that is rare in fashion. “I don’t work with seasonal themes,” he says. “What I work with is a mood. I call it a room. That’s where the name Salon comes from. It’s about creating this sort of meeting space — with people or ideas, creativity, a place of freedom.”
If all of this sounds rather quaint and personal, know that quaint and personal is exactly what’s resonating in the oversaturated, overexposed luxury fashion climate we’re in today. Lundman was pushed away from fashion because of the relentless commercial churn, and he was pulled back in by a return to the purity of craft. Now, his collection is on racks at the world’s most rarified independent shop floors — Ven.Space in Brooklyn, Nitty Gritty in Stockholm, and Biotop in Tokyo — and consistently sells out within days. During Paris Men’s Fashion Week, the tiny Salon C. Lundman showroom in the Marais drove as much buzz as Dior’s blockbuster runway show.
But none of it is calculated. Lundman is humble, reserved, and seemingly caught off guard by his own sudden success. “It’s difficult to explain what I do,” he says. “It just feels right. I don’t take it for granted. A lot of it is trusting yourself and the process and the craft and your experience.”
While the brand is hitting the menswear scene with a surprising freshness, it’s all very new to Lundman, as well. Including a new way of working. “I called it Salon, and it’s all about meeting people, but I end up spending most of the time on my own. It hasn’t been easy,” he says. At previous jobs, Lundman would’ve had eight or 10 designers working under him. “But the pleasure has been that I know that it’s on my terms, and I don’t need to compromise with anyone. I can trust the instinct. I can not overcomplicate things and just follow this road.”
There is one facet of Lundman’s instinct that stuck with me after our conversation. “I don’t like the idea of perfection,” he says. “Somehow, I end up doing well-made clothes with a precise fit. But the idea of presenting yourself as a sort of ideal, I dunno, it doesn’t interest me.”
I’ve never really considered the difference between perfect and precise. One is a theoretical ideal, while the other is the result of expert experience. “For me, it’s instinctive,” Lundman says. “I’ve done this my whole life, so I should know it by now.”
