YMR Track Club is one of the most recent additions to the OPUMO pages, so to welcome this new sportswear label to the family we thought we'd find out a bit more about the new collection. Norr Mälarstrand is a collection that embodies YMR Track Club’s design mindset as a whole. Founder and Olympic athlete Peter Häggström Lindecratz revisits history for inspiration, updating vintage collections with modern, high-quality craftsmanship and sustainable materials. We wanted to delve a little deeper on the stories behind this new collection, so we found some time with Peter to talk inspirations.
When did you found YMR Track Club?
YMR Track Club has a long history of sports and fashion, tracing its roots back to 1917 in Sweden – the year the sports club IK Ymer was founded. The run club played a big part in my athletic development, so for the 100th anniversary, I founded the brand as a tribute to my former sports club.
How does the new collection relate to the clothing worn by the actual YMR Track Club?
Running and athletics form a great part of YMR Track Club's DNA and influence the design and character of the performance wear. Every detail is important in order to cut seconds or even hundredths of a second from a result. It’s with that mindset that we have developed the Norr Mälarstrand collection.
Tell us more about the Norr Mälarstrand collection, what was the main idea behind it?
I got the main idea for the collection from looking at old photos from YMR Track Club's victory at the Stockholm City Relay in 1950, a massive relay event in Stockholm at the time. Thousands of people cheered on the runners in the streets of Stockholm and in the Olympic Stadium.
The team was not expected to be a serious contender for the victory. The legs of the relay were between 2000 and 5000 meters. The race started at Valhallavägen in the Östermalm neighbourhood in Stockholm and the runners sprinted down the streets of Stockholm. After the first leg, Ymer's team was surprisingly in the top three.
To be able to follow the race, the coach Sten Bussqvist had to take a taxi. It cost him 20 Swedish crowns. When entering the beautiful Olympic Stadium, Ymer was still among the top three. As Ymer's Gösta Jacobsson put in his final kick and passed the leading runners with only 150 meters left of the race the crowd went crazy. Wow! This was by far the most surprising win in the history of the race!
How did you translate the spirit of the YMR Track Club into the Norr Mälarstrand collection?
The Norr Mälarstrand collection has split shorts, singlets, T-shirts, long-sleeve shirts and tights made for running for both men and women. These are directly inspired by the uniforms worn in 1950. The premium fabrics are knitted locally in the Sjuhärad textile district of Sweden. Here, the expertise of producing high-quality fabrics and fashion has been carried from generation to generation. The Sjuhärad area is still today the centre of Swedish textile and fashion. Being able to produce our collections here means that we can innovate with materials; for Norr Mälarstrand, regular polyester has been replaced by polyester made from recycled plastic, for example.
Shop YMR Track Club at OPUMO.
