“Design is about evolution”: For AW24, Stutterheim evolves into much more than a raincoat

“Design is about evolution, not change,” says Stutterheim creative director and CEO Lee Cotter. It’s a sentiment he took to heart in approaching the beloved Swedish brand’s autumn/winter '24 collection. Here, Stutterheim, best known for its wildly popular raincoats, makes a seismic, Pokémon-esque evolution. Designing with Stockholm’s not-always-pleasant climate in mind (“During the winter, it rains a lot. It’s not only snow,” he says), Cotter presents an enticing proposition: stay dry, stay warm and look great doing it.

There are kick-flare pants and boxy cropped jackets. Faux fur bucket hats (with waterproof liners, natch) and utility trousers tucked into lace-up leather boots. It’s distinctly urban – the sort of garments meant to be worn when dashing from place to place on wet concrete. It’s also, despite its boundary-pushing, distinctly Stutterheim. After all, the ubiquitous popularity of their raincoats – particularly amongst the finicky American hip-hop set – is largely due to their slick, minimal aesthetic. “I always say, we’re not the best raincoat, but we are the best-looking raincoat,” Cotter tells me when I meet him in the brand’s subterranean HQ. Outside, it’s raining, or as Cotter calls it, “Stutterheim weather”. (For the record, Stutterheim raincoats have quite literally been named the ‘best raincoat’ on more than one occasion, including by hard-to-please New York shopping site The Strategist).

Though the collection marks a notable new chapter for Stutterheim, Cotter, who had previously been working as a creative consultant (clients ranged from Yeezy to EA Games), had been laying the groundwork for this evolution for some time. When he joined the brand as creative director four years ago (“It was in the height of the pandemic – it was a good time to call me because all of the projects I had shut down,” he says) he spent some months getting the lay of the land, “treading carefully” and “respectfully”. When the brand’s founder officially left the company, Cotter stepped into the role of CEO, where he was poised to flex his design chops as well has his business acumen.

His first move was to rework Stutterheim’s visual expression, which, since the brand was founded in 2010, had emphasised a sense of Nordic melancholy. To liven things up a bit, Cotter leaned into the brand’s enduring hip-hop connection (forged when rappers like Kanye West picked up a coat whilst playing in Stockholm). He began to subtly tweak the imagery, the tone of voice. “It wasn’t a drastic change,” he says. “I just created an expression that actually exists today. It was just looking at how it’s worn and who’s wearing it and where they wear it. And it’s an urban city brand. So we brought it into more of an urban city contemporary expression.” He notes that in New York, the brand’s second biggest city in terms of sales, you’re just as likely to see a streetwear-savvy adolescent wearing Stutterheim as you are to see it worn by a design-conscious businessman heading to the office.

Next came a greater emphasis on high-quality materials (all pieces are made in Europe) and a handful of new products – the leather boots, the rain-ready bags and hats. The goal was to be more than just a raincoat, without ever forgetting the importance of the raincoat. By way of example, he mentions another Swedish brand: Absolut Vodka. Sure, they’ve jazzed up the bottles with artist collabs and introduced countless flavours and even the more premium Elyx, but the OG Absolut remains unchanged, even after all these years. For Stutterheim, that OG offering is two never-changing coats: the straight Stockholm raincoat and the A-line Mosebacke.

It’s all culminated in this collection. “We actually took a step to create a collection that is my view of the brand. Not 100 per cent me as a designer, but my view of what the brand should be in 2024,” says Cotter. Still, his design ethos is very much present. Best known for the cult favourite brand V Ave Shoe Repair, Cotter is all about shape and structure, an approach he brought to this season’s offering. “I started off looking at the silhouette, and then I designed the garments after the silhouette. Not the other way around,” he says.

This comes through in everything from the sharp two-tone chore jackets to the classic double-breasted peacoat to the cocoon-like puffer jacket (sure to be a dead-of-winter favourite). Though many of the pieces are unisex, there’s also a well-conceived women’s silhouette, most notably via those aforementioned flare pants and cropped faux fur jackets. The look is completed by thick and hearty roll-neck knitted jumpers. Meanwhile, the colour palette remains subdued and understated – browns, blacks, army greens – a nod to that melancholic past. Fittingly, the corresponding campaign was shot in concrete-heavy corners of Stockholm.

Evolution is constant, and for Stutterheim, this is just the beginning. Up next, a collaboration with American denim giant Lee, in which Lee’s most iconic pieces are reworked in a rainproof Stutterheim material.

Meanwhile, though Cotter kept the Stutterheim DNA in tact in creating this collection, he couldn’t help but add something distinctly himself: shorts. Yes, shorts, for winter. “It’s an homage to my childhood,” says Cotter, who grew up South London. “When I was in school in England, we had shorts until December.”

See the full collection below: