Acne Studios is a multidisciplinary luxury fashion house based in Stockholm, Sweden that specializes in men’s and women’s ready-to-wear fashion, footwear, accessories and denim. When founded in 1996, the label derived its name from the creative collective ACNE; initially an acronym for Associated Computer Nerd Enterprises and later a backronym of Ambition to Create Novel Expressions.

Founder and Creative Director Jonny Johannson’s interest in photography, art, architecture and contemporary culture is reflected in the brand’s clothing, publications, furniture, exhibitions and special collaborations.

Acne Studios started as part of the creative collective ACNE that focused on graphic design, film, production and advertising. In 1997, cofounder Jonny Johansson created 100 pairs of raw denim jeans with red stitching and gave them away to friends and family. Wallpaper and Vogue Paris quickly picked up on the popularity of the jeans and Acne Studios rapidly expanded their fashion offering outside of denim.

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To sum up Acne Studios’ aesthetic in just one word is pretty much impossible. In four words? Effortless, innovative, tailored and playful. Its thoughtful contrast of materials, textures and eclectic colour palettes (including “millennial pink”) create a design language which founder and prolific designer Johansson dubs as “maximalist minimalism”.

Acne Studios’ nordic design codes span across ready-to-wear. Whether you’re wearing Acne womenswear, menswear, denim, footwear or one of those cult scarves or shearling jackets, chances are you’ll look unapologetically cool.

In addition to the internal label bearing the Acne Studios writing on each garment and accessory, Jonny Johansson created the Face logo. It is a smiley similar to an emoji which, according to the founder, represents the stereotype of the Scandinavian citizen “ Neither too happy and smiling, nor too sad”. The expression of this smiley in Swedish translates to the word lagom. During the years the creative director transformed it into a distinctive sign for Acne Studios , positioning it in the form of a metal plate, embroidery or print, on women’s and men’s fashion garments and accessories.

Since launching, Acne Studios has grown into a global fashion house with retail stores around the world including Paris, London, New York, Los Angeles, Antwerp and Tokyo, offering women’s and men’s ready-to-wear collections and showing at Paris Fashion Week twice a year.