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After almost 25 years out in the harsh reality (!) of the tough international fashion industry; Katarina Håkansson has decided to honor Sweden with her presence. I say honor because it is not always we get a fashion professional of her caliber back to our cold latitudes.

The story about how it all started is really sweet. Once she was an ambitious law student at Lund’s University that went to Paris to improve her French. A bit of partying is obviously mandatory when studying abroad for a while and Katarina did her share fare. At one of these parties she met a group of make up artists that she started chatting to and that is pretty much the story.

Katarina Håkansson “I was never really at ease with the law studies, they never felt really right”, Katarina says. “When I started talking to these people I realized what an incredible job they had”, she continues. With that she started looking for a school, found one and it was bingo – she had found her calling.

She talks about some newcomers mistakes when she was trying to work on her own after school, but eventually she got it right and started working as an assistant which she continued with for a number of years. “It was a lot of washing brushes for several years and sure felt tedious at times, but at the same time I got so much experience and met so much people during this time so it was certainly the right thing to do”, Katarina explains.

Eventually she started getting her own serious jobs and those were for French Elle. From that day she has worked a lot for Elle and her connection with them was also one of the reasons she got to work with Swedish Elle when it first started getting published.

Whilst doing work for Swedish Elle she met fashion photographer Micke Jansson. “That was really important because it was while working a lot with Micke that I developed my own style and that is what I brought with me when I moved to New York”, she explains.

The pancake make up of the 80s was on its way out and Katarina hit it exactly right when she came to her new city. Unpowdered, glowing and shire colors all made the new fresh look that she was the expert in and she got in demand straight away. During her almost 13 years in New York she has worked with all the big names in fashion.

After a few years the idea to create her own label came up and she started working with a lab in New York to develop the products. All products were thoroughly tested in her work and everything was sent back and forth numerous times to reach nothing but perfection. The unusual about the products is that the colors are like wax and not powder, which also mean that you apply them in a different way (before the powder and not after as you would usually do). This is something that is much more common among professional make up artists but very rare among the everyday users.

Colors from Håkansson.

In 2003 it was time to launch her range “Håkansson” and it was done nowhere less but at Colette’s in Paris. The launch even got the Senior Beauty Editor at French Vogue to do one of her rear outings from the office.

“Håkansson” has been launched in several countries around the world and since a short time we are able to enjoy the range in Sweden as well. There are still only a few selected shops that sell the products but there will be more and the label will be more visible as well. Katarina sure has a lot of ideas to put into practice and you do not want to miss any of them.

The essence of the story – never miss a party!