Worn by
Mats Klingberg
Founder of Trunk Clothiers in London, England
Photographed by Luke Rhodes
Could you introduce yourself, and your shop?
I ’m Mats Klingberg, the founder of Trunk Clothiers on Chiltern Street in London’s Marylebone area and since a couple of years ago also on Dufourstrasse in Zurich’s Seefeld area. As well as online of course. Grew up in a small town south of Stockholm and from when I was ten, I lived in Sao Paulo in Brazil, where we moved because of my father’s work, for a couple of years. We travelled a lot across Brazil and the rest of South America during this period and every summer when going back to Sweden we also travelled a lot in the US, so this was really the start of a never-ending journey of discovering different cultures, foods, designs, etc around the world.
Trunk was very much founded on experiences from my travels, particularly to Italy and Japan. Living in London there were so many brands that I liked and couldn’t get, so that combined with the attention to detail, impeccable service and unique approach to buying that I’d come across in Japan combined with the personal service and brand selection I’d seen in several family run menswear shops in Italy is what I founded Trunk on.
Many of the brands we started with were brands that I already had in my own wardrobe and many of these brands are still very important to us. What connects them is their passion for the craft of making the garments, the timeless designs, the quality, how they are made and their clear sense of provenance. And pride in what they do. The people behind the brand and the people making the garments are a very important factor when deciding which brands to stock and not.
Why did you decide to stock De Bonne Facture in your shop?
Remember meeting Deborah at Pitti in Florence in the early days of De Bonne Facture. The brand really ticked all the boxes of what I look for in a brand and with Deborah’s passion for the craft, the transparency of where all garments were made, the beautiful designs, nice materials, etc, etc it was love at first sight.
what are your stylistic inspirations regarding the men's wardrobe?
My inspiration in all forms comes from travels near and far and of course also from our customers that I meet in our shops. Trunk is all about effortless elegance. Getting dressed or packing for a trip needs to be easy and as I always travel with carry-on luggage only it’s important to be able to build a wardrobe made up of only a few well-made pieces that can easily be combined in different ways.
What are your references in design and architecture?
Warm, welcoming and cosy is what I like, so places like the Ett Hem hotel in Stockholm with interiors by Ilse Crawford comes to mind as well as the Svenskt Tenn and Norrgavel interiors shops in Stockholm. Other reference points are Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Isay Weinfeld, Frank Lloyd Wright and Ossipoff to name a few. And Katayama’s Wonderwall in Tokyo. Would love to have them design a Trunk shop one day.
What song, album, or piece of art is currently inspiring you?
I’ve got quite a varied taste in music and at the moment I’m listening quite a lot to a radio station in Portugal called Smooth FM, LOS 40 in Spain and SR P3 in Sweden. These bring back nice memories of recent and past road trips, the most recent one driving around Galicia in Spain this summer.
What are your favourite adresses in the area around your store?
LONDON
Perfumer H - lovely fragrances
Niwaki - all the gardening tools you didn’t realise you needed
Mouki Mou - wonderful selection of womenswear
Daunt’s - best bookshop
Defune - love sitting at the sushi counter
Granger & Co - easy Aussie
Royal China - favourite for dim sum
Fisher’s – best wiener schnitzel in town
Opso - great Greek
ZURICH
Kronenhalle - a Zurich classic
La Réserve Eden au Lac - a new Zurich classic
Bimi - local Japanese
Limited Stock - great for gifts
enSoie - a very Zurich shop with great interiors bits
Any future plans or project you would like to share?
Very happy with the direction the business is going at the moment and with the development of our own in-house label in particular. What started with a couple of pieces is now a complete collection and we’re just launching our first ever shoes, so looking forward to seeing how these are received by our customers.
We’re also spending quite a lot of time improving our online customer journey and experience and how this ties in with our in-store experience. We want to make it as smooth as possible for our customers that are shopping with us around the world, or in our shops in London and Zurich. They all fascinate me, whether they are a carpenter or a fashion designer.
