In 1948 Elsa and Anders Westerlind, my grandparents, started their clothing company AB Anders Westerlind, in Göteborg Sweden.
Elsa was designing and Anders selling at the start. They started with one seamstress and 10 years later they had 300 employees. 1960-ties they were one of the first Swedish companies to open a sewing factory in Portugal to be closer to the Italian weavers.
1970-ties the oldest son Lars, my father, met my mother Birgitta at textile school in Borås, and they fell in love. My mother is from Stockholm and was chosen as the best dressed woman in 1970 by the biggest fashion magazine Damernas Värld! She won Elsa’s heart with her style and soon after she started at Westerlinds as the new Designer.
After some years my parents took over the headquarters in Sweden and Elsa and Anders moved to Estoril/Portugal to be close to the factory.
Lars and Birgitta thrived the business by widening the sales offices all over the world, main countries where Switzerland, New York, Finland, Norway, Denmark, and Germany.
1980-ties they opened their third sewing factory in Tunis/Tunisia.
1974 I was born and Birgitta brought me everywhere. She learned me everything and she inspired me to do the same as her.
In 1999 I graduated Fashion Design BA at the University of Borås/The Swedish School of Textile and started to work as a Designer at the family company. 2003 I started Maria Westerlind AB together with Pär Westerlind (Larsson). 2011 we moved to Switzerland and in 2021 we started Westerlind GmbH.
