Our 2017 Malmö, Sweden Look Book | An Interview w/ Aleks Jovanovich

Malmö, Sweden — Home to to our latest Look Book and menswear influencer / blogger Aleks Jovanovich

Aleks Jovanovich of aleksjj.com

You’re prob­a­bly all used to fash­ion ads and mag­a­zines that fea­ture glossy mod­els look­ing less than authen­tic. This sea­son, we sought to cre­ate some­thing dif­fer­ent. We want­ed to cre­ate a look book that was not only visu­al­ly hon­est but matched both the demo­graph­ic and style pref­er­ences held by many of our cus­tomers.

As such, we sought to part­ner with an indi­vid­ual that had a pas­sion for menswear and under­stood how online made to mea­sure had emerged as more than a trend­ing fad. It’s with this these cri­te­ria checked off that drew us to acclaimed menswear influ­encer and blog­ger Aleks Jovanovich (aleksjj.com). Aleks, who is a man­age­ment con­sul­tant by day, was also an active Deo Ver­i­tas cus­tomer which gave him a unique­ly per­son­al per­spec­tive and expe­ri­ence.

Our newest look book was shot in Aleks’ home­town, the his­toric coastal city of Malmö — this col­lec­tion fea­tures a num­ber of casu­al and for­mal shirt­ing looks tai­lored to the com­ing fall / win­ter sea­son. Addi­tion­al­ly, Aleks not only posed as our fea­ture mod­el but assist­ed in the design of the season’s line and out­fits to match.

Aleks’ unique­ness is his abil­i­ty to incor­po­rate his sense of style into an oth­er­wise crowd­ed field — focus­ing on large­ly busi­ness inspired looks that incor­po­rate flash­es of .…

We sat with Aleks’ post-shoot, to talk about his back­ground, his thoughts on the look book, as well as his per­spec­tive on the direc­tion menswear is head­ed.

Deo Veritas:  Can you give our readers a bit of background on you personally as well as your interest as it relates to menswear?

Aleks:  My inter­est in menswear start­ed back in 2011 when I first start­ed work­ing as a man­age­ment con­sul­tant. I start­ed replac­ing my track suits, jeans and hood­ies and it basi­cal­ly start­ed off from there. Now I enjoy wear­ing my suits, sport coats and dress shoes even om my spare time when not at work. If you’d ask my friends to com­pare my style now and then, they would prob­a­bly just laugh =)

Our Crown White Twill made from Giza45 Egypt­ian cot­ton, the finest fab­ric we offer.

Deo Veritas:  As our photo shoot was shot in Malmo (your home city), can you give some of our readers a bit of info regarding the city / culture?

Aleks:  Malmö is Sweden’s third “largest” city with about 300.000 peo­ple liv­ing here. There is a wide mix of peo­ple and cul­tures and also the home town of Zla­tan Ibrahi­movic. Cir­ca 43% of the pop­u­la­tion have a for­eign back­ground, either born abroad or Swedish-born with for­eign born par­ents. In 2011, 174 coun­tries and about 150 lan­guages were rep­re­sent­ed in Malmö which of course has had a large impact on the cul­ture.

The coastal city of Malmö, Swe­den.

Deo Veritas:  The look book featured locations that had a very old Northern European feel / look. Can you help describe some of the significance of these locations?

Aleks:  The look­book was shot in a part of Malmö called “Gam­la väster” or “Old West”. Dur­ing the 19th cen­tu­ry most­ly crafts­men and peo­ple form the low­er hier­ar­chies lived in these areas but dur­ing 1980s there was a very large shift and nowa­days the hous­es in this area are amongst the most attrac­tive and expen­sive in Malmö. Today, Old West is a beau­ti­ful exam­ple of how to pre­serve an old­er city cen­ter in an attrac­tive way.

Aleks in The “Old West” of Malmö

Deo Veritas:  How do you feel the menswear enthusiast / influencer arena has changed / progressed in the past few years?

Aleks:  It’s a fact that social media has become a real game chang­er. Peo­ple are get­ting more aware, knowl­edge­able and it’s also much eas­i­er to find inspi­ra­tion from people/influencers/accounts that tru­ly inspire you and are not super­mod­els or celebri­ties. You can also see that men are actu­al­ly spend­ing more mon­ey on cloth­ing than before and also buy­ing more cus­tom made prod­ucts and cloth­ing (MTO, MTM, bespoke).

Deo Veritas:  The outfits were hand selected / picked by you. What would you say is your ‘style’ — both formally and casually.

Aleks:  That’s always a tricky ques­tion, I think my style has changed quite a lot dur­ing the last cou­ple of years and I think I’m start­ing to find what I like more and more. My for­mal style I would say is busi­ness / cor­po­rate but with a clas­sic and per­son­al edged. I always use a pock­et square and like adding some acces­sories like my lapel chain to my suits that I pre­fer with a clas­sic sil­hou­ette and wider lapels. My casu­al style how­ev­er is tru­ly “work in progress”, here I’m still exper­i­ment­ing a bit and also adding pieces to that part of the wardrobe that has been a black hole until recent­ly.

Our Blue Ging­ham Cash­mere blend. The soft­est shirt­ing fab­ric you’ll ever find.

Deo Veritas:  Is there as specific time period or individual that has influenced your style?

Aleks:  As I men­tioned pre­vi­ous­ly I pre­fer a more clas­sic sil­hou­ette to my suits, but still adding a mod­ern twist to it. There are sev­er­al accounts that I fol­low and that I often go to for inspi­ra­tion. Some Swedish actu­al­ly and some Ital­ian are my go-to account at the moment. Just to men­tion a few – Andreas Weinas: the most ver­sa­tile and all-round account you can find on Insta­gram – Gusvs9: prob­a­bly the best dressed Swedish gen­tle­men when it comes to busi­ness wear – Fabioat­tana­sio: Ital­ian bespoke guru where you can both find inspi­ra­tion and learn about bespoke gar­ments / process

Not­ed Menswear Influ­encer / Insta­gram­mer Fabio Attan­sio

Deo Veritas:  The look book featured a number of ensemble outfits to supplement our shirts.  Could you let some of our readers know where they can find some of these items (i.e. suit, pants, ties, lapel loop)?

Aleks:  The first item I would like to high­light is of course the lapel chain that you can see in some of the looks. This is my own prod­uct that I’ve designed and had cre­at­ed bespoke at a local gold­smith here in Malmö, actu­al­ly not far away from where the look book was shoot. For inquiries feel free to drop me an e-mail.

Most of the pieces (suits, jack­ets, pants) that you could see are MTM gar­ments from Swedish com­pa­nies, 2 of them actu­al­ly also from Malmö – Pelote, Engel­s­ka Herr and the oth­ers are e.g. Blu­gial­lo and Sir Of Swe­den. The selvedge den­im trousers are a bespoke pair also made in Malmö by a com­pa­ny called Manér. The ties fea­tured in the look book are from the Ital­ian tie mak­er Ste­fano Cau. The black tas­sel loafers are also from Swedish shoe brand Mor­jas Shoes that was recent­ly launched.

Aleks’ bespoke lapel chain shown with our Tigris Light Blue End on End w/ our Ital­ian Full Cut­away col­lar

Deo Veritas:  What’s attracted you to Deo Veritas vs. some of the other shirt makers in the market?

Aleks:  What is tru­ly remark­able with Deo Ver­i­tas (apart from of course the fit and great fab­rics) is the lev­el of cus­tomiza­tion, not only the design options you have on the web­site, but also the pos­si­bil­i­ty to fur­ther cus­tomize. This fact togeth­er with the “under 2 weeks deliv­ery” is what real­ly makes you stand out among the rest.

Our uber soft navy hound­stooth cash­mere cot­ton blend, shown with our Ital­ian Full Cut­away col­lar.

Deo Veritas:  What are your thoughts on online customization?  Is it a trend or do you think it’s here to stay?  Additionally, how do you compare the experience of MTM / Bespoke tailors (storefronts) vs. virtually (pros and cons)?

Aleks:  I think online cus­tomiza­tion is absolute­ly here to stay. Not only that but actu­al­ly the whole “cus­tom made” trend is a more sus­tain­able way of man­u­fac­tur­ing clothes rather than mass-pro­duc­tion.
When it comes to pros and cons com­pared to store front expe­ri­ence I would say:
(+) Time and cost
(+) Avail­abil­i­ty
(+) The vir­tu­al shirt design­er where you see the end result direct­ly

(-)  The per­son­al guid­ance and inter­ac­tion
(-)  No test / mock­up shirts
(-)  Not being able to phys­i­cal­ly see / feel the fab­rics

Deo Veritas:  Do you see yourself turning this hobby into a full time ‘gig’ down the road?

Aleks:  You nev­er know =) It would be real­ly fun at least. Look for­ward shoot­ing the next look­book for DeoVer­i­tas, that’s the least I can say!  Maybe next time we can do it at the French Riv­iera or some­where in Italy? What do you think?  🙂

A cream oxford shown with our newest col­lar, the One Piece or Cal­i­for­nia col­lar