Stefania Malmsten grew up in Stockholm, on Hagagatan in Vasastan. It was the 1970s, and it was a far cry from the gleaming, gentrified Vasastan of today. There was not always hot water in the taps at home, but there was an open, creative atmosphere. Her mother was a writer, her father an illustrator, and she worked as a child actor. “No time to lose!” is the informing spirit of Stefania’s career. She skipped a year of primary school...Read more. She went to Beckmans College of Design at 18, probably the youngest student ever admitted, after which she went straight into a position as a fashion and AD’s assistant at Clic magazine, then on to Dagens Nyheter’s Sunday magazine and Bonnier’s literary magazine BLM. “I like building up systems,” she once said, explaining her attraction to the editorial suite. “Magazines are actually the perfect system.” Several years later, she was one of the founders of Pop magazine, one of Sweden’s most powerful communications projects. With boundless energy, great seriousness, deep knowledge of the subject and world-class aesthetics, a few people managed to change a whole generation’s understanding of pop music. Pop was a punch in the mouth, delivered with love. As previously mentioned, there’s no time to lose! After Pop came the fashion magazine Bibel, Vogue Hommes in Paris, four years in New York, and starting in 2013, her own studio, Malmsten Hellberg, produced Rodeo magazine, with Stefania as creative director. “The whole thing of setting up strict rules which you then break is one of the foundations. And I think it’s a designer’s duty to be rooted in the current period.” Unsurprisingly, it is Stefania herself who best sums up the philosophy behind over 30 years of creative work at the highest level.

After the Platinum Egg: Stefania has continued to develop the design studio in collaboration with Ulrika Hellberg. Their work spans the range from various arts projects to jobs for international giants like Adidas. She also teaches visual communications part-time at Beckmans College of Design.

– F.N.