While both entities thrive on their own, Our Legacy and Tres Bien have been working together for quite sometime. Our Legacy produces some of the best in today's contemporary menswear market and Tres Bien houses some of best names in today's industry, as well as stocking a rather healthy and exclusive stock of Our Legacy products, further showcasing their relationship. Together, they form like Voltron, well not really, however we are introduced to WELCOME and its first collection. Taking a minute from perusing the world and his ever so busy schedule, we were able to catch up with one of the head honchoes over at Tres Bien to speak on the collaboration.

 

Adrian Carter: First and foremost, please introduce yourself and tell the people what you do

 

Hannes Hogeman: I'm Hannes, co-founder and buyer at Très Bien.

 

A: How are you today?

 

H: I'm much better than last week thanks for asking. I broke my leg in a football game the other week and gonna be cripple for 5 more weeks.

 

A: Geez, glad to know you are recovering well from the injury. What were you up to prior to doing this interview?

 

H: I just finished the last touches for a printed t-shirt line were launching this spring.

 

A: Never not busy, eh? If I can gauge correctly, you all have been working diligently and around the clock in preparation for WELCOME's first season in addition to overseeing daily operations at Tres Bien, correct?

 

H: Correct. At the moment we have a bunch of projects in the making and Welcome SS13 is one of them. Design and production has become a just as big part of our daily operations as buying and selling products from others.

 

A: Very dope. Now let's dive into some history here. Having been a fan and continued supporter, as well as having the pleasure of getting to know both Tres Bien and Our Legacy personally, it is pretty evident you guys have a long standing relationship. In your own words, can you tell us a bit about when the relationship started, bringing the WELCOME Store (2010) to fruition, and why you guys decided now was the time to produce WELCOME's first collection?

 

H: I ran into Jockum of Our Legacy many years ago. At that time the brand was not released yet. When we first connected it was more on a personal level than through clothing and from there our companies have been working tight every season. Welcome is concept based on shared values and eager to do something different and more uncalculated and surprising.

 

A: There must be a deeply rooted respect Tres Bien has for Our Legacy and vice versa, as we've seen yourself and Simon shot (by tommy ton) wearing some of Our Legacy key pieces from previous seasons. Can you explain the design process you guys went through in coming up with the collection?

 

H: With Christopher Nying being head of design at Our Legacy it was natural that he also worked on the Welcome design. However, since we don't work with any ground rules and keep Welcome very open, we were all, us and the rest of Our Legacy, very much involved with input, inspiration and ideas.

 

A: You guys seem to travel in packs, and following the blog, it seems as though you all move similar to a family unit. One thing I have noticed, is the overall aesthetic in terms of individual style of dress. While there are some similarities in style, you all seem to have something unique going on in both camps. Did you guys take into account personal style and preference when producing the entire collection?

 

H: We very much based the collection on personal style but no one ever mentioned it and its nothing we discussed. We know each other well, that pretty much everything came out naturally. Since we wanted to keep the collection tight there was off course some arguments and killed darlings.

 

A: During the design process, were there any prominent inspirations that affected the direction of the collection?

 

H: For fall the theme is that everything is a bit on drugs. The Mushroom coat for example is a classic cut coat but seen through the foggy Welcome f/w 12 filter it is something different.

 

A: With any great relationship comes disagreements. Did you guys run into any differences when coming up with the collection? How did you work through the differences?

 

H: So far it's been nothing but inspiring and we've all been going in the same direction with this.

 

A: Music seems to be an undercurrent at Tres Bien. Jockum and I share a love for Rick Ross and Curren$y and Viktor's selection of trap music is pretty damn intense. Is there anything in particular you have been listening to in the office or while working on this project?

 

H: Haha. That's true. Lately, we've actually spend our office days without music. Don't really know why, might be some technical problems that we haven't have time to deal with yet.

 

A: The WELCOME brand started off as a carefully curated boutique filled with specific items of choice between both Tres Bien and Our Legacy, will we see this space open back up or will it be focused primarily on garments?

 

H: The temporary Welcome store was a really fun thing to do so I don't see why not. Maybe in an other part of the world though.

 

A: Tres Bien has built a solid reputation on presentation alone. Anyone familiar with anything involving Tres Bien can identify the clean aesthetic along with Sune modeling all of the inventory, did you guys source any help with shooting the look book?

 

H: Curating and selecting products, imagery etc is what we do so were not very comfortable with taking in people from outside to do that for us. Off course, we like to collaborate with talented people, but we didn't this time.

 

A: Are there any pieces from your collection that come to mind as favorites? Ones that you will more than likely be wearing and why?

 

H: For me me the whole big logo thing has always been tricky but when working with Welcome I think it's different. I really like the idea of something that never existed expresses itself with an in your face logo, like its the most natural thing. It's some kind of self esteem that I think is quite fun. So, all the logo things and the common projects colab we did that is set to release any day, is what I will wear from the collection.

 

A: Can you shed some light on where you'd like to see WELCOME in the future.

 

H: We look at Welcome as a project that is very unpredictable so it's a bit hard. Maybe a Paris store would be nice.

 

A: That would be awesome. Congratulations on the release and Thank you for your time Hannes. Rest up.

 

For purchase and more details about WELCOME feel free to check out Tres Bien online or in-store at Our Legacy locations.

 

(pictures are from Welcome F/W 12 presentation at ANNAELLEGALLERY in Stockholm)

 

Adrian Carter