The Women Behind By Malene Birger Don’t Follow Fashion’s Rules
By Malene Birger Creative Director Maja Dixdotter and CEO Ellen Dixdotter. Courtesy of By Malene Birger
ELLEN & MAJA DIXDOTTER
The Women Behind By Malene Birger Don’t Follow Fashion’s Rules
By Bonnie Langedijk
The multi billion dollar luxury fashion industry is a place of duality. There’s a constant stream of newness, innovation and rapid change, but nevertheless many of fashion’s traditions have been left untouched. The fashion week calendar, the relationship between brands and wholesale partners and the way in which brands and publications interact with consumers have remained the same. To survive in this ever changing world and to connect with the next generation of consumers, you better be ready to change the systems in which the fashion industry currently operates.
Two women who are redefining how luxury brands function are sisters Maja and Ellen Dixdotter. The duo took over the reins of Danish fashion house By Malene Birger two years ago. Originally founded by Malene Birger in 2003, it was one of the first Danish brands to break through internationally. But over the years, the changing landscape became difficult to navigate for the brand, which lost its touch with consumers and culture at large. But, a lot has changed. Since their appointment, CEO Ellen Dixdotter and Creative Director Maja Dixdotter have brought the house back into the cultural zeitgeist. The brand puts women at the forefront, working with a range of creatives from influential imagemaker Suzanne Koller to iconic model Małgosia Bela to Art Director Ashley Helvey. The duo is rethinking every aspect of what a fashion brand should be today, and they’re not scared to take a directional approach. Raising questions that only few operating in the traditional fashion industry dare to ask. We spoke with Ellen and Maja Dixdotter about dressing for yourself, the issues with the traditional fashion model and building community through brand.
By Malene Birger Spring 2023, photography and styling by Suzanne Koller, modeled by Małgosia Bela.
The By Malene Birger showroom in Paris, designed by Camille Vergnes
Bonnie: I wanted to start off at the beginning. Was there a specific person or experience in your that sparked your interest in design or fashion?
Maja: Our mother is one of those people. She’s always been very strong and she had her own style. I’ve actually just realized that a lot of my designs look a lot like things that our mother wore back in the day. The quality, shapes and the use of natural fibers.
Did you have the same appreciation for her style when you were younger?
Ellen: I have a window between year 14 and 17 that needs to be deleted from a style perspective. I was extremely rebellious in my style. But before and after that we appreciated her.
Maja: She was cool because she was strong. We also grew up surrounded by a collective of many loud and proud women.
Ellen: They were quite politically involved, as people were in the seventies and eighties. Everyone had a strong opinion and it was all about equality and world peace. In the small village where we grew up, there were very few conservatives. It was very bohemian in a hardcore way.
“I never wanted to be COMPARED to the girls that were classic pretty and I definitely wasn’t dressing up for a guy. ”
Has growing up in that female collective influenced how you approach building the By Malene Birger brand?
Ellen: Absolutely. Our philosophy is that you don't dress for someone else, you dress for yourself. When I got older and started meeting more people from outside the village we grew up in, I realized how hard women, and girls especially, tried to look pretty. I never wanted to be compared to the girls that were classic pretty and I definitely wasn’t dressing up for a guy. I couldn't be bothered. I think you followed that as well.
Maja: Absolutely. It's so important that what you wear makes you feel confident. It's about clothes that bring comfort and make you feel free.
Ellen: And you can't feel free if your jeans are too tight.
There's sexiness in that, right? Feeling comfortable and confident in your clothes. It’s been two years since you started carving out your direction for the brand. You launched the new monogram, you're working with Suzanne Koller and some iconic models like Malgosia Bela and Giedre Dukauskaite. What's most important for people to understand about the direction you're taking the brand in?
Maja: It's important that they get our world, and to understand that it’s a continuation. For those who come across the brand now, I hope they look back at the past two years and see that we’re a brand that has its own style.
Ellen: It's about making more women understand our point of view. That can get lost if you’re spread too thin. When you work a lot with wholesale for example, you're just one rack among many other brands. That’s why we want to open more stores and create brand homes that showcase the brand full circle. We’re also working towards making even smaller collections. This world is so busy, there's so much newness. We want to give people a chance to actually experience our brand and products properly.
So many people are stuck in the rat race. Only a few take the time to step back and question: What are we doing? Or why are we doing that?
Maja: You can’t have everyone as your customer and you can’t stand for everything. When you’re very clear about what brand you want to create and who you’re creating it for, it becomes easier to cut things out.
Ellen: It’s about confidence and daring to believe in what we're doing. We can never cater for all and we don't want to cater for all.
If you try to be for everyone, it always becomes a watered down version of your vision. Consumers are wanting much more from brands than simply products. How are you building that universe around the brand beyond the product?
Ellen: We’re already doing so many things, so the next step for us is to start to really tell the stories. Both me and Maja, we love digital, but we’re also quite analog. We love the physical world. You can never fully translate an IRL experience to online. Both experiences serve different purposes. We love good design, perfumes, wine and great food. It's all of the things that make life nice basically.
By Malene Birger store. Courtesy of By Malene Birger.
By Malene Birger Fall 2023, look 21. Art Direction by Ashley Helvey and Jurgen Maelfeyt, photographed by Chaumont–Zaerpour, modeled by Giedre Dukauskaite. Courtesy of By Malene Birger.
And if your brand is strong enough you can pretty much apply to anything. Right?
Maja: Absolutely. So often people ask me: But how do you know what's next? And I just think: What do you even mean by that? I don’t have to follow what everyone else is doing. It’s not like: “Oh, everyone is working with blue. We need blue.” No, we don't need blue then. We are creating a universe with a style. I'm so surprised that a lot of people still think it works like that.
Ellen: But in many aspects the whole fashion industry is very traditional. Not much changes. It's the same thing every time you’re interviewed during fashion week: “What was the inspiration?” But for us, it was the same as last time. And it was probably one of the cool, older women in the small village where we grew up. Style never gets old.
It’s my biggest pet peeve.
Ellen: When you walk through the collections – and Maja works with it, I'm more the explorer afterwards – you’re drawn to the texture, the qualities and feel of the fabrics. The new vision and bigger idea was implemented with the start of the rebranding, not in every single collection because then it wouldn’t be as cohesive.
Maja: All the collections start with exactly what you just said: pieces of fabric, a color and a feeling. That's the story. Sometimes it seems like that isn’t enough when you have to answer those questions.
Ellen: What makes our garments special doesn't easily translate on a catwalk. A runway gives you 9 minutes, fast walking, music and you don't have time to absorb all the qualities of our collections. It doesn't line up with what we believe in particularly.
Maja: It feels like people aren't making a conscious decision. It's just an old way of showing clothes.
Shows also don’t allow you to connect with press, buyers or your community in a way that a presentation or other format does. Speaking about community, you have carved out quite a directional method in terms of who you work and connect with. What’s your approach to connecting with customers and people working in the industry?
Ellen: We’re constantly scouting. We have endless DM threads with inspiring women. It can be a customer, it can be a chef, it can be an artist. What it usually is not is the classic influencers. We want to work with women that actually like the brand and who inspire us. It needs to feel authentic. It's also about how you wear things. We’re always drawn to the people that mess it up a bit rather than being a walking mannequin. It also goes back to knowing who we are, who we get inspired by and understanding who the customers will get inspired by.
Maja: Throughout the rebranding process, it’s been key to show who we are and make creative women speak for us. We don't want everyone to wear By Malene Birger.
Ellen: We’ve seen big high street brands, not mentioning names, copy us. But what you can never copy is a style. Maja does all the styling for us for all channels, which is unique in itself. Maja starts styling from the first design idea and then it seeps all the way through.
That’s interesting. It makes sense because as the designer you understand the purpose of the garment, why and how you designed it. Sometimes styling overcomplicates and makes it less connected to the real world – it becomes a gimmick.
Ellen: That's what happens with fashion shows often.
Maja: It becomes a show with a focus on show.
By Malene Birger Spring 2023, photography and styling by Suzanne Koller, modeled by Małgosia Bela.
The By Malene Birger headquarters, with a rug by Maja and Ellen’s rug brand Cappelen Dimyr
When you look at the industry, what do you think is the one development or new technology that has had the biggest impact on how you approach building the future of By Malene Birger?
Ellen: The dialogue with the customer is something that has been moved to new channels. We want to find new ways of creating a dialogue with the customers. To not be a dictator of style, but to inspire. I think people are also almost fed up with the classic social media. With a newsletter like yours for example, you feel that there’s a person behind it. Consumers are looking for that human touch over click bait. The big mainstream platforms, you’re just fed up with, right? And the analog moments – like our dinner for example – where you invite your followers in to some extent, but also allow things to be a bit private.
What people are looking for is honest dialogues. It’s such an opportunity for brands to hear from their audience what they like, what they don’t like or what they would want to see if you do a collaboration.
Maja: It’s about daring to step outside of your lane. It’s about talking about extremely important issues like sustainability, but also about everyday life issues or inspiration or wine. Also, when someone comes to the store, maybe they just want to meet with someone that can tell you a little bit more.
It's interesting because I think menswear has done a better job at this. Especially within streetwear, all these kids are just hanging out at a store all day. That's what I loved about our dinner. If I could just replicate that in five stores in London that I love, I would just be chilling in these stores all day, you know? As a brand you need to take more of a human approach and speak on different topics. You don't have one friend who only talks about sustainability or who only talks about clothes. It's about being multidimensional. The difficulty is where do you stop and where do you start?
Ellen: That's why it's important that with the dinners we host, the showrooms we set up, to not put too much pressure on one thing. Instead we focus on things that we get inspired by, we bring it into our universe and then tell our customers about it. It can be a lipstick, it can be perfume, it can be a sustainability commitment. It’s layered, just like life.
