“I am a person who loves silhouettes. Silhouettes are my starting point,” says Arket’s head of design and creative, Ella Soccorsi, on a brief visit from Stockholm to the new Dublin shop, which opened last month on the corner of Nassau Street and Dawson Street. Dressed head to toe in black, she wears a roll neck merino sweater (€89) with front-zipped black nylon skirt (€99), black stockings, pointy leather flats (in burgundy from autumn-winter 2024, €149) and pearl hoops (€39), her long hair in a bun.
Her Arket attire reflects her approach to design. “We push the silhouette a bit more to get expression – shaping the ordinary – it makes it interesting and still versatile. The sweater is merino – it could be cashmere – and you can play within those frames. The nylon skirt [there’s a matching jacket] is influenced by sportswear and leisurewear.”
Thoughtful, ruminative, serious and clear in her objectives, her main focus is product and how it looks on display. “Curation is important, so ideas have to be taken all the way up to reach the customers. It’s about making good design, quality and beautiful things accessible for everybody.”
Soccorsi sounds English: she is married to an English man and her children speak English and Swedish in Stockholm.
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She is one of three daughters of an Italian father and a Swedish mother who met in Yemen working for Save the Children. She grew up in Zambia, where her father had lived for many years. At 14 she left Africa for boarding school in Sweden and initially planned to study engineering but instead pursued a degree in design at Beckmans College of Design in Stockholm, long regarded as the quintessential house of creatives in the city. After graduation she later established an avant-garde fashion brand, Nakkna, with two others before becoming head of design for studio and innovation collections for H&M.
So she came to Arket, where she has worked for more than two years, with almost a decade’s experience of masterminding these special collections. She now leads design teams at Arket responsible for womenswear, menswear, childrenswear, homeware and the cafe. The new flagship in Dublin – more than 800sq m over two floors – houses the signature Arket cafe with a seasonal vegetarian menu, pastries and coffee.
A walk with her around the shop starts with the childrenswear – bright, colourful and free spirited. “The garments are attractive to the parents as well,” says Soccorsi, mother of a 10-year-old boy and an 11-year-old girl.
In womenswear she unwraps one of their most popular items, a black alpaca wool blend lightweight sweater for €89. Arket shirtdresses (€119) are best sellers – there is one is black with zip details, another in a powder pink. Some shirts have front tucks that enhance the waist. “I love playing around with shirts – we talk a lot about archetypes and reinventing archetypes like the peacoat, the bomber jacket, the shirt. A lot of nerdiness goes into it.”
Workwear has inspired a stylish cream corduroy jacket. Along with denim jeans and other basics, there are comfortable navy cord trousers, perennial favourites among whose fans is Penny Martin, editor of the Gentlewoman magazine, with which Arket has collaborated on an autumn-winter wardrobe.
The design philosophy of the company is rooted in the Nordic modernist movement of the 20th century, and the idea of making good design affordable and accessible. Clean lines, a neutral colour palette and solid materials drawn from nature are a focus, as are functionality and longevity. In the Dublin shop, the spacious interior is decked out with oak furniture, soft grey marble walls and greenery.
“Fashion today is about a surge towards the ordinary, and the ordinary is very interesting,” says Soccorsi. “I find real life very inspirational, but you have to dream. There is not so much escapism in fashion any more, but more an emphasis on durability and timelessness. We play with surface and decoration.”
Style “is how you put it together. Attention to little details like how you roll up your sleeves or push up the collar of a shirt. It’s something that makes the ordinary extraordinary.”
Such functionality lies at the heart of the brand, which was launched in 2017, with a name that translates as “sheet of paper”.
“It’s all about the practical – being practical for the lives of people who have to pick up kids from school,” says Soccorsi.
The shoe collection, made in Italy, is limited in the Dublin shop for space and storage reasons, so a more comprehensive offer can be found online.
While Arket uses suede, linen, wool and down, when asked about synthetic fibres such as polyester, she says they “work with it when it makes sense, but 94 per cent of our fabrics are sustainably sourced. We have a great supplier base. Creativity has no limits, but it always has to be value for money.”
It is an attractive store, though downstairs the homewares area could benefit from a bigger offering and ideally some Irish collaboration; it has bold and colourful blankets from a Swedish company called Klippan, and great wooden brushes from Iris Hantverk, made by visually impaired craftsmen in Sweden.
“We care so much about the home, where we spend so much time,” says Soccorsi. “And these everyday objects like cutlery and cushions include things that make you feel that little bit happier.” A sound approach.
