The duo dressing tomorrow’s leaders

The first time I came across Saenguin Suits, I knew I wanted to have the brand feature on Edit Her. From the name – a Scandinavian play on the British word synonymous with confidence – to the sustainably-made signature suits modelled by women reminiscent of Wall Street heroines, everything succinctly ties back to female leadership. Having recently celebrated their first anniversary at the time of our interview, the brand is building a community of like-minded women. The well-travelled founders, who used savings from their first salaries to start up, are currently residing in their home countries – Svenja in Germany and Marita in Austria – and planning to move their brand onto an international scale.

The co-CEOs met three years ago during an exchange term in London, as part of their master’s degrees in International Management at the London School of Economics. While holidaying together in Taiwan a year later, they dreamt up the idea for Saenguin Suits. “We were discussing how difficult [it was] for us to find something to wear, the whole convention around how you dress for the office and interviews – that was basically the minute Saenguin came about,” Marita tells me. “[We] never thought it would be something so big in such a short amount of time, but here we are today,” she recalls. Speaking with these women, it’s immediately clear they spent most of their twenties immersed in the world of business and economics, having received their education from institutions like the prestigious Copenhagen Business School. It’s no wonder the once curious undergraduates are now well on their way to storied success. And they accredit their problem-solving skills and perseverance to what they learned in the classroom.

Photo by Pimoea

But while it’s obvious their impressive academic achievements gave them the framework for management, Svenja points out they learned “no technical skills for fashion, sadly”. You’ve got to admire their enthusiasm for wanting to be multi-disciplined, especially when a flooded fashion market means more brands are being built by founders whose backgrounds aren’t within the fashion design industry. However, Svenja and Marita aren’t focused on what everyone else is doing; the crisp, classic suits in their own collection are beautifully sketched and crafted by their designers in London and Amsterdam, with every stitch and pattern executed flawlessly. That’s also a result of the duo’s close involvement in perfecting each design. It’s certainly a change from their first collection when, assuming the role of designers, the ladies worked solely with patternmakers, in what what they now call “a crash course” and “very expensive”.

It helps that the brand started out small during what they refer to as a “trial period”, focusing on a handful of suits – expect classic black, navy and pinstripes – and a single blouse, offered up in a choice of traditional ivory and rich mustard. All designs are made in the UK and Europe, and they are “super essentials for the businesswoman [starting out]”, Svenja tells me. I can confirm they’re the ideal foundation pieces for a capsule collection.

Both women are very vocal about the message they want to spread and the community they’re building: “Our ideal customer is a woman with both feet in the business world or [her] career,” Svenja says. She adds that their target audience would be self-aware and keen to empower other women in everything they do.

When it comes to splitting up roles and responsibilities, the pair have an original take on things. “Marita is the hustler-slash-hipster and I’m a little more hacker-slash-hipster,” Svenja jokes. So, while Svenja focuses on website design and the e-commerce space, Marita specialises in customer engagement. Speaking of which, there’s a lot to be said for their 360-degree approach to ensuring customer satisfaction. The brand’s Interview September initiative is dedicated to preparing new graduates for the start of their careers. As well as being kitted out with streamlined separates, promising young professionals can also expect a one-on-one mentoring session with women in their industry, which includes ironing “some last kinks [out] of their CVs”, as Svenja puts it. This all stems from their obsession with interviews, which is part of the inspiration behind Saenguin Suits. After making a few fashion faux pas of their own during the early stages of their careers, the co-CEOs are now dedicated to helping others make better sartorial choices.

Talking about the pressure to make a good first impression, Svenja says: “You’re kind of thrown into this formal world and you have to figure it out really quickly; it’s kind of a high-stakes situation, a moment where you should feel confident, like yourself.” But that wasn’t her reality in the beginning. “I picked out this costume that was really not made for a 23-year-old me,” she recalls, before explaining that this is why the pieces in their collection are super streamlined. “They’re appropriate, you’re not going to make a bad impression. You just pair [them] with either heels or flats, whatever you prefer, and you’re good to go. It’s really about that solution to the problem we had a couple of years ago,” she concludes.

They recognise that September (they picked this month as it’s when most graduates typically interview) looked very different for graduates in our current climate. But as we go on to explain, these outfits are about instilling confidence in women that transforms the way they think and feel – and that’s important at any time of the year. Svenja draws on academic researchers Hajo Adam and Adam Galinsky’s study on ‘Enclothed Cognition’ which discusses the impact of what you wear on how others perceive you. She recalls running around in suits all day at the start of her career and having people address her formally because of it. “It’s like having powers,” she tells me. “It really gives you the feeling that you can take on the world and that’s what we hope to give our customers. Women deserve really cool, functional, performance-optimising businesswear that is wrinkle-free and easy to handle. There’s been so many decades of menswear being perfected; now is the time for women to get the same treatment,” she affirms.

While they’re a German-based brand, Saenguin Suits prefer to call themselves European or global-born, which makes perfect sense considering their team members are working in all different parts of the world (Stockholm, London, Hamberg and Denmark). Marita explains, “It is just a mindset, they [customers] can be anywhere in the world”. This also applies to the brand’s supply chain. Showing their contribution to a more responsible fashion industry, the brand is working with production partners and NGOs to support – or “economically empower”, as Marita so passionately puts it – rural women in India, helping them to secure jobs.

Svenja and Marita are two women who are only just getting started and, judging by their international mindset, are sure to make a difference to women all over the world. So, what does it feel like to be an entrepreneur? “I love startups and reading about them,” says Svenja, “but I was never obsessed with hammering out different ideas. For us it was really the need of the product which drove us, and then we were like ‘OK, I guess we have to build a company around this if we want to sell to people’. I absolutely love it, it’s so rewarding to build something on your own and see it come to life – something that a year and a half ago was a little blip in your brain.”

And with all the ups, there’s obviously a few downsides, too. “There are weeks where we sleep really badly and have lots of anxiety,” Svenja continues. “Because we have no idea how it’s going to go, if there’s going to be enough cash flow and how we’re going to produce the next product. Things get lost, there’s a lot of stress.”

“For me, it’s so much fun, especially because you can directly see when you put something into motion,” Marita adds. “Suddenly it’s really out there, people are actually buying from you, supporting your mission; I think that is just great, I couldn’t imagine anything else.”

So what advice do these two have for budding entrepreneurs? “Being naive in the beginning is quite helpful because you just jump in,” Svenja recalls. She attributes growing in confidence to that kind of mentality. “It’s going to be tough and it’s going to be amazing – and everything in between. Just ride the wave and be resilient.” Well, they would know. Their brand might only be just over a year old, but Svenja and Marita have clearly got one heck of a journey ahead of them – watch this space.