Acne Studios

Acne Studios was founded in 1996 in Stockholm, Sweden 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.

In 2006, Acne Studios became a standalone company and separated from other entities within the collective ACNE such as Acne Film, Acne Advertising and Acne Digital, at the same time launching their e-commerce operation. 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, showing at Paris Fashion Week twice a year and turning over $215 million annually in 2016. In December 2018, after rejecting earlier takeover offers (including from Kering), IDG Capital and I.T Group acquired stakes of 30.1% and 10.9% respectively, from the investment companies Creades, Öresund and PAN Capital. Jonny Johansson and the executive chairman Mikael Schiller remained as majority shareholders.

In 2019, the company moved its headquarters from Gamla stan (Lilla Nygatan 23) to Floragatan 13 (Granen 21) in Stockholm, the former Czechoslovak embassy building. Acne creative director Jonny Johansson and many other designers were involved in the redesign of the listed brutalist building, designed by Jan Bočan.

In the 2019/20 financial year, there were 60 Acne Studios boutiques worldwide, including several shops-in-shops in larger department stores, such as Galeries Lafayette and Shinsegae. The company supplies around 800 retailers and online retailers worldwide, employing over 700 people. Acne's annual sales amounted to 2.34 billion kroner, equivalent to over 200 million euros.

Products

Acne Studios design men's and women's ready-to-wear fashion, footwear, denim, and accessories including handbags, small leather goods, and eyewear.

Acne Studios stages runway fashion shows for its women's Fall/Winter and Spring/Summer collections twice a year.

On 6 April 2017, Acne Studios relaunched its denim collection under the name Acne Studios Blå Konst (meaning "Blue Art" in Swedish) at all of their retail locations and on Acnestudios.com. This launch consists of men's and women's ready-to-wear, jeans, and accessories. In addition, an Acne Studios Blå Konst pop-up shop located in Tokyo's Shibuya district was opened to showcase the launch, which it houses exclusively. Six new denim styles including the North, River, and Land for men and the Climb, South, and Log for women have replaced the range of existing denim products. While these jean styles are permanent, the Blå Konst ready-to-wear collection will be updated seasonally.

On 17 August 2017, Acne Studios launched its Face motif collection, featuring patches of an emoticon face with two small circles and a long rectangle. Having first been introduced in their Autumn/Winter 2013 collection as a clutch, the face motif was featured in a unisex collection of ready-to-wear and accessories.