It comes as no surprise that semantics have always mattered to Elin Kling and Karl Lindman, who founded the womenswear brand Toteme in New York in 2014, the same year they married. The Swedish couple’s aesthetic, after all, is synonymous with precision and restraint—of palette, silhouette, and materials alike. Their focus lies in the essence of a garment, the building blocks of an archetypal wardrobe.
Though trending terms such as “quiet luxury” could easily be applied to this calculated yet unostentatious approach to dressing, the duo has shrugged off that label, or any really—until now. “I have always struggled with others talking about Toteme as a minimalistic brand; I didn’t want us to use that word,” Kling, wearing a black knit and bare face, tells me when I meet the couple in Paris in November. “But 10 years later, I think that’s maybe exactly what we are.”
“We don’t scream. It’s not the aesthetic of Toteme.” —Karl Lindman
Kling had this epiphany earlier in the week while visiting the brand’s new Paris flagship (their first outpost in mainland Europe) on the well-heeled Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. As with most of their 26 boutiques or shop-in-shops globally, the 2,390-square-foot, two-story space was designed by Stockholm-based architectural studio Halleroed. Its art-gallery-white walls and Italian limestone floors are punctuated by precisely placed pieces: a Voronoi Carrara marble shelf by Marc Newson here, chalky Liljevalchs sofas there. Twelve large black-and-white archival photographs by longtime Toteme collaborator Mikael Jansson and a stained-glass window by Lucie Gottlieb add a discreetly decorative touch. “We wanted it to feel serene and really remove everything that was unnecessary,” explains Kling. “We don’t scream,” Lindman chimes in. “It’s not the aesthetic of Toteme.”
Kling and Lindman have always been dogged in their vision. “In our first season, we were told by partners buying into Toteme that we needed more prints, more colors,” Kling says, of a time that was dominated by street style and loud, look-at-me fashion. “We almost did it, but we stayed in our space.” “We are these broken records, Elin and I,” Lindman adds with a smile.
The duo, introduced by mutual friends when they were both expats living in New York, shared a background as visual creatives with media experience. Before launching Toteme in their early 30s, Kling successfully ran Style by Kling, the blog she started in 2007, along with the bimonthly magazine StyleBy. Lindman, a former model, cut his teeth as an art director before joining Interview as the magazine’s design director.
That shoe-leather work, combined with a clear-sighted vision of what was missing from the market (sharply edited clothing with a sense of purpose and a price point whose accessibility is more than an afterthought), helped them stand out from the crowd from the jump. Early success stories include their boxy scarf jacket, a mainstay that is updated each season. Today, every piece still has to speak to Kling personally. As Toteme has expanded its offerings—very successfully into leather goods (all hail the just-relaxed-enough T-Lock bag) and, most recently, jewelry—she maintains the same philosophy: “It’s all rooted in, Would that inspire me?”
Twelve years in, Lindman says, “the challenge is to stay true to a kind of ‘anti-algorithm’ because everyone is looking at the same things, at the same travel destinations, or if it’s some piece of furniture or trending art.” For that reason, he continues, “I’m very proud of our Paris store—it’s very much trying to resist the idea of, I don’t know, a round bubbly sofa.” (These storefronts are steadily becoming a focus for the brand’s image; they have three more cities in the U.S.—Miami, Chicago, and Dallas—in their sights.)
A trend-proof environment is one thing; women also have to want to wear the clothes and feel enough urgency to actually buy them. And they do: From 2022 to 2024, the brand’s annual turnover increased from €100 million to €180 million. For the Spring/Summer 2026 collection revealed last September in New York, Kling’s vision evolved to reflect the exponential velocity of modern life (the couple is juggling 200 employees globally, not to mention two young children).
The lineup of slip dresses, tanks, and pajamas arrived deliberately (but only slightly) disheveled. Bags hung open, their clasps ignored. “I like the idea of our woman being quite speedy,” says Kling. “The Toteme woman has direction, and she cares, but she also cares about other things in her life.”
And what of the Toteme man? Are they imagining who he might be? “Could be,” says Lindman, with a slow smile and a shrug. And venturing into furniture? “What can we say, we’ll do it,” he jokes, before adding, “We’ve always been very intrigued by the idea of creating a successful brand, not just a successful collection.”
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