Former editor-in-chief of Another Man, co-editor-in-chief at Katie Grand’s LOVE, and now editor of ES magazine: Ben Cobb knows menswear inside out. He is as known for his position on magazine mastheads as he is for his 1970s-inspired wardrobe. So when Bryan Conway, creative director of Sweden’s oldest tailoring brand Tiger of Sweden, suggested teaming up for a capsule collection, Cobb was all in. ‘We have a shared love of menswear,’ Cobb says of his relationship with Conway. ‘And a keen eye for detail.’ With eight everyday pieces crafted from deadstock materials sourced from British and Italian fabric mills, the essential collection includes two suits in Cobb’s now-signature 1970s cuts, four shirts in stripes and block colours, patterned knits, an overcoat, and dress coat. Getting dressed has never been so easy.

On the capsule’s beginnings

Ben Cobb: ‘I pulled some bits from my own wardrobe that I love, and then we went on a wild goose chase with vintage. Playing dress up really, going around to vintage warehouses.’

Bryan Conway: ‘We brought them out to our studio, downstairs in London.’

Ben: ‘Literally for hours we were dressing up saying, “What’s that like with that?” Pulling things apart, mixing and matching. I think that’s where we kind of fused.’

On the power of limitations

Bryan: ‘We didn’t want to make anything from scratch for this collection. The usual design process would be to go out and find vintage garments and take some element that you’re inspired by. Some designers will literally go, “Right, this is it – copy it, send the fabric, let’s get it made up.” But for us, it was more about what we loved. It was clashing and it was eclectic.

Instead of then trying to send the trouser off and speak to an Italian milliner saying make this up for us, it was just like, let’s put the same process with the fabric. We contacted loads of amazing British mills and asked, “What do you have already made? What do you have in stock?” And that really directed the collection.’

Ben: ‘I’m not a designer and I think at the beginning it’s quite overwhelming to think: where do you start? So for me, [this process] really set parameters, and it made it achievable for me. Otherwise, where does it end?’

On the mood of the collection

Ben: ‘We’ve discussed this at great length; I think it’s about trying to find what elegant menswear looks like now. It’s about timeless elegance. In my head, I have these guys all through history who I think are style icons like [French actor] Alain Delon and [Austrian actor] Helmut Berger. We talked a lot about characters, and how you build these clothes around these characters, which brought the collection to life.’

On everyday style

Ben: ‘It’s not about occasion dressing, it’s everyday dressing. It can just be a shirt with an amazing pair of trousers; this great knitwear we’ve done; the cropped V necks. It doesn’t have to be a big thing.’

Bryan: ‘We’re not making suits for somebody to get married in. Even with what Ben’s wearing today, it’s breaking the suit jacket with the trousers, it’s clashing the shirt with the knit. It’s very playful, and very elegant.’

‘It’s about timeless elegance.’

On their collaboration dynamic

Bryan: ‘It’s so different to how I work with the rest of the collections because firstly, it’s working together from the absolute start to finish with Ben. In a way, I’m kind of alone – obviously I have the whole Tiger of Sweden team, but it’s very much just what I think they should do. Whereas this collaboration was about constantly talking and then checking back and forward; it isn’t just about what I think.

There are things that I love and there are things that Ben loves. I’ve really enjoyed working with somebody, and it’s different to what Tiger would do normally. It is very much more English, which I love. I don’t want Tiger to be just one thing, it’s a lot of things, so this is a lovely part of that. I wish we could use fabrics like this every day; the fabrication is absolutely amazing.

That kind of taste comes from Ben as well. He insists on really heavy wool, which most people wouldn’t do for normal collections because – oh, it’s too heavy, too many people might not like it. But it’s really insisting that at least, and that’s the art.’

Ben: ‘That’s how you have that shape, that silhouette. We spent ages talking about the silhouette of what this guy looks like. You need big, serious material to do that.’

On reimagining Tiger of Sweden’s century-long legacy

Bryan: ‘The Tiger team had a lot of fun because it kind of pushed them out of their comfort zone with the structuring and patterning. This is stuff that we would have done in the 1970s and 80s and slowly over time, [that knowledge] gets lost.’

Ben: ‘A really exciting moment was finding this campaign image from Tiger in the 1970s. It’s just a really cool, very simple, black-and-white image of this guy with an amazing outfit. And for me, that clicked and inspired the whole campaign we’re shooting. This isn’t coming out of nowhere, it’s going into the history of Tiger of Sweden and pulling out what was there before.’

Bryan: ‘What I think you’re great at is looking back at things and going, that’s great, let’s bring them back and make it modern.’

On their favourite pieces

Bryan: ‘The two I love the most are the big black trousers and the shape of the knits.’

Ben: ‘Yeah, they’re great. We were talking about it, it reminds us of Northern Soul kind of knitwear and the zigzag pattern on those. I love these Prince of Wales check trousers, and the really heavy twill. I would love to see someone out and about – someone I don’t know – wearing it in his own way. How he put it together. That would be a real thrill.’

CREATIVE DIRECTION BEN COBB AND BRYAN CONWAY. MODELS KELVIN AMANKWAK AND BUNNY SYXES. HAIR RYAN MITCHELL. PRODUCTION JESS RODGERS.