NK is the only luxury department store in Sweden. Ever since it opened in 1902, quality has been a cornerstone of the NK brand. To prove that originality still beats cheap copies and secure NK’s position as Sweden’s premier store for luxury fashion, we let highly treasured vintage NK garments show among the new season’s garments – indicating that the new line up will be the classics of the future. In order to tell the life story of each vintage garment, we interviewed the proud owners of everything from swan hats to croc totes. Some of the garments and their stories were exhibited at NK; some became part of an ad campaign together with the new spring classics. The campaign’s call to action was to get people to come to NK to discover classics - old and new alike.

We started by telling all potential new and old clients about our mission by recalling old vintage NK clothing on Facebook and by email to reach NK’s regular customers, in national newspapers and in the local classifieds to reach the old bunch of customers and by sending out empty garment bags to famous fashion oracles. All media directed people to the department store where they could have their garments evaluated by vintage experts from the leading auction house in Sweden. Some of the garments got to tell the story of their lives in an exhibition at NK. Some were styled together with the latest spring items and featured in a print and subway ad campaign. The visual expression of the campaign reflected the stories of the vintage garments. During the campaign, NK staff also personally tagged which new items they believed were destined to be future classics.

Despite the recession, the campaign managed to reverse a downward spiral and attract 121,154 new customers to NK. That means 10% new costumers.