The Stones of Gamla stan
Stockholm’s Old Town, its medieval streets and the stone beneath them. How that surface became the grain of the leather on the first LJB pieces.
Stockholm’s Old Town
Stockholm began on a small island where the lake meets the sea. The island is Stadsholmen. The town that grew on it is now called Gamla stan, the Old Town, and it is the oldest inhabited ground in the Swedish capital.
It is not large. You could cross it on foot in minutes, but the lanes slow everyone down. The lanes are narrow and the houses stand close, tall and plastered in ochre and red. Light arrives late and leaves early. Underfoot, stone.
The town dates from the thirteenth century. Fire and rebuilding have changed most of what stands above ground. What lies beneath the feet has changed less.
The medieval plan
The street plan is medieval. It was never drawn. It grew.
Two long streets run the length of the island, Västerlånggatan and Österlånggatan. They follow the line of the old town walls, which stood along either shore before the land rose and the town spread outwards on fill. Between them, lanes climb to the square at the top, Stortorget. Some are wide enough for two people. Some are not. Mårten Trotzigs gränd narrows to less than a metre.
Nothing here is straight. The lanes bend around what was already there: a well, a church, a neighbour’s wall. The plan is a record of small decisions made over a long time. That is why it holds.
Kullersten and setts
Two kinds of stone pave the town.
The older is kullersten: rounded stones, gathered from fields and shores, left behind by the ice. Each one a different size. They were set in sand, close together, flatter side up. Walking on them, you feel every one.
The other is the sett, gatsten: cut granite, roughly square, laid in rows or in fans. Setts came later, as the lanes were made easier for carts and then for cars. They are more even. Still, no two are alike. The cut was made by hand, and granite splits as it wishes.
In Gamla stan the two meet. A lane of setts opens on to a courtyard of kullersten. A gutter of one runs through a field of the other. The joins are not hidden.
Light and weather
Stone does not have one colour. It has the colour of the day.
Dry, it is grey and brown, with a little rust in places. In rain it turns dark, almost blue, and the street reflects the sky, the lamps and the colour of the houses. In summer the light is long and comes in low along the lanes. Under a low winter sun the surface goes flat and every edge throws a shadow. Under snow it is gone, then returns in the thaw as dark islands.
Centuries of feet have worn the high points smooth. The hollows stay rough. Run a hand across a sett and you feel both. That is the texture. Not a pattern, but the difference between what has been touched and what has not.
From stone to leather
The exterior of the LJB Leather Wallet and the LJB Prestige Duffle Bag is a dark blue textured leather. The texture comes from the stones.
Not a print of them. A grain that behaves the way the stone does: irregular, raised where it catches the light, sunk where it does not. Dark blue, because that is the colour of the lanes after rain, at the hour the lamps come on.
The wallet carries the grain on the outside and smooth brown leather within: card slots, a diagonal pocket, and a copper LJB logo that belongs to another Swedish story. The duffle bag carries the grain across its whole body, with brown leather straps, brass hardware and the LJB logo patch on the front.
On each, the same surface. The same origin.
Why we begin here
A first series has to begin somewhere. We chose the ground.
We could have begun with copper, or with the forests. We began with the stone, because it is the surface the city has walked on for centuries and rarely looked at.
Gamla stan is where the city started. It is also where what we make points back to: material taken from the land, shaped with care, worn by use and better for it. The first LJB pieces begin with that surface. Everything else follows.
