Swedish Stockings opens its first New York pop-up as tights sales soar

It opens today, 7 October, and runs until the 18th: the first US pop-up of Swedish Stockings is at 251 Elizabeth Street in Nolita, the handful of blocks south of Houston Street where Manhattan keeps its small, expensive shopfronts. The Swedish brand, which makes tights from recycled yarns, arrives with numbers that explain why New York and why now. As it told Glossy, its US direct-to-consumer revenue grew 37% between January and September 2026, and black, which made up about 80% of sales in 2024, is now down to 65–70%. Whoever walks in at 8 am, the brand writes on Instagram, gets a preview of the Roxana Tiger Tights, the tiger-print style designed with Leandra Medine Cohen, in two new colours.

Elizabeth Street, Nolita: the red-brick buildings on the same street as the pop-up. Photo: ajay_suresh, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The numbers behind the boom

Glossy, which spoke to founder and CEO Linn Frisinger, published a set of figures the brand does not usually disclose. Between January and September 2026 total revenue increased more than 30% on the same period of 2025, wholesale sales grew 45% over the past twelve months, and in 2025 revenue came 54% from direct-to-consumer sales, 35% from wholesale and 11% from other activities. The company remains private, owned by its founders and individual shareholders with no private equity, and funds itself through what it sells; it is net profitable, Frisinger says, without giving a figure. "We are very careful with money," she explained. "If you want to make a change in the industry, you have to stay around. That means building a financially stable company."

The context helps. According to Euromonitor data cited by Glossy, the US non-sheer hosiery market recorded solid growth in 2025, and the research firm expects fashion and social media to keep driving demand for hosiery as a statement product rather than an invisible layer. At the September shows the dressed leg was everywhere, and Swedish Stockings was on some of those runways: long socks at Cecilie Bahnsen and drop-crotch tights designed with Julie Kegels in Paris, pieces for Daniel W. Fletcher in London, as the brand's own profile recounts.

The figures disclosed to Glossy: growth, black's share and the effect of the styles designed with Leandra Medine Cohen.

Black loses ground

The most interesting number is not about New York but about colour. In 2024 about 80% of Swedish Stockings' sales were black; today the share has fallen to 65–70%, and the rest is prints, colours and lace. Frisinger describes a mechanism anyone who has bought a pair of coloured tights will recognise: "They buy something more eye-catching at first, and then they see that the quality is great and start buying their basics from Swedish Stockings." The fashionistas wear them and show them to their audiences; "the wider customer might not buy the most eye-catching pair, but she gets inspired and buys the black pair or something more discreet."

The numbers back it up. Between October and December 2025, 75% of those who bought the styles designed with Leandra Medine Cohen were new to the brand, and 49% of them have already purchased again, against 51% of other first-time customers. In the two months after the first launch, October and November 2025, global direct revenue rose 60–70% year over year. Black remains the "bread and butter", as Frisinger calls it, but the tiger print is the front door.

Who Swedish Stockings is

The brand was founded in Stockholm in 2013 by Linn Frisinger and Nadja Forsberg with a simple idea: remake tights, the most disposable item in the wardrobe, from recycled nylon. "Tights may be small and inexpensive, but billions of pairs are thrown away every year," Frisinger told Vogue Scandinavia when presenting the Autumn/Winter 2026 collection, photographed by Janneke Van Der Hagen and styled by Hilda Sandström. "We wanted to challenge the idea that tights should simply blend in." Production is in Castel Goffredo, the hosiery district near Mantua, and in some styles the yarn is ECONYL regenerated from fishing nets: we told that story here. The company also runs a production service for other brands, Treadfine, and in the United States sells through Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, Ssense, FWRD, Revolve and, on a dropship basis, Moda Operandi.

Roxana, Leandra Medine Cohen's tiger print

The Roxana Tiger Tights were born in October 2025 inside "Integrated Parts", a limited-edition capsule of four styles designed with Leandra Medine Cohen, the American writer who founded Man Repeller, after a year of working together. "We really wanted to make these different moods shine through and bring out the different parts that make up our personal style," Beatriz Gama, creative lead at Swedish Stockings, said in the brand's journal. Medine Cohen explained why this brand: "There is no other brand that places such a luxury premium on tights." And she had advice for anyone daunted by such a strong print: "Start by wearing them under pants, it feels less daunting when they function more like socks."

The tights themselves are a 40 denier, so semi-opaque, as our denier guide explains: tiger print, 89% polyamide and 11% elastane from recycled yarns, a broad soft waistband, cotton gusset, reinforced toe, flat seams, sizes XS to XXL, made in Italy. According to the brand's product page, the original Orange sold out instantly; it was restocked in March 2026. Now it returns in three colours, Sharp Red, Bubblegum and the original Orange: previewed at the pop-up from 7 October, online from 8 October at 3 pm CEST. The price is $65 in the United States and €43 on the European site. "We couldn't imagine opening our New York pop-up without Roxana," Frisinger told Glossy. "It's the style that played such an important role in expanding our presence in the U.S. and one that has truly left its mark."

Tiger-print tights, three looks

An animal print on the leg is a statement, and like every statement it works when the rest of the sentence keeps quiet. Three pairings, from the easiest to the boldest.

• Under a trench. It is the favourite way of Hilda Sandström, the campaign's stylist: a coat or a trench, with the tights appearing only between the hem and the shoe. With a black loafer or ankle boot, the effect is of a detail discovered by chance.
• With a denim mini. Dark denim, a plain knit, Sharp Red or Orange tights and a black knee boot, or a ballet flat. The stripe does all the work: no prints on top, no accessories that shout. The same logic as red tights in street style.
• Under a black slip dress. The evening version: the black slip dress, the tiger print in dark grey or orange and a metallic sandal, the pairing the brand itself suggests. A 40 denier under a short dress holds up through the longest nights.

One rule for all three: one pattern per look. If the leg is tiger-striped, the bag, the shoe and the jacket stay plain, preferably dark.

The pop-up, 14 October and what comes in 2027

The temporary store is at 251 Elizabeth Street, in the upper part of Nolita, on a street where small independent labels and designer boutiques have alternated for years. It opens on 7 October at 8 am and closes on the 18th; on 14 October Leandra Medine Cohen will be in the store. For the brand it is also a way to introduce itself in person to a market where until now it sold only online and through department stores.

It does not end with the tiger print. With designer Colleen Allen, an LVMH Prize finalist, Swedish Stockings has developed a series of body stockings, previewed with the Spring/Summer 2027 collection and on sale next year. And the philosophy remains that of tights that last: "The point is that you shouldn't have to buy them over and over again," Frisinger said. "You can take them out again in two years, and they will still do something extra."

Black remains the bread and butter of every drawer. But the ten to fifteen points of share it has lost in two years say that, for the first time in a long while, tights are also bought to be looked at.

On the same subject: the story of Swedish Stockings and its fishing-net tights, coloured tights and their comeback and the denier guide.