The Scandinavian duo of Malin Otmalm and Heidi Holst, known on Instagram as StockholmviaOslo (SvO), met while studying as international students at TRU in 2006. Together they have created an international brand that has caught the attention of 10.3K followers.
The pair instantly hit it off and became fast friends sharing, not only blonde hair, blue eyes and a foreign accent, but a love for fashion and design with a Scandinavian esthetic.
Malin Otmlalm, TRU alumna (’11), came to TRU from Sweden to study digital art and design. She fell in love with Canada (as well as a Canadian) and has been a resident ever since. She currently works as a graphic designer for Lululemon’s social media team, is a social media consultant, professional Pinterest:er (pin’s for companies) and is the resident designer for Woodlot.
Heidi Holst, TRU alumna (’11), came to TRU via Norway to complete her degree in Psychology. She is currently completing her Masters of Education in Counselling from TRU and works at Interior Community Services (ICS) as a counselling intern with the Family Enrichment Program.
Heidi Holst and Malin Otmalm of SvO
StockholmviaOslo girls Malin Otlmalm and Heidi Holst Q & A –
How did you come up with the idea for Stockholm via Oslo?
We were both born and raised in Scandinavia and we love Canada but missed the design inspiration from back home. We started looking into the idea of sharing inspiration with others and Instagram made sense!
How would you describe this brand?
Stockholm via Oslo is a lifestyle concept intended for any reader who is interested in fashion, style, and design. It honors our Nordic heritage and even though we take inspiration from all over the world, we focus on giving our followers an essence of Scandinavian simplicity in every post.
What are the intentions of this brand and what are your goals for it?
Our main intention behind SvO was to start a lifestyle micro-blog featuring daily inspiration from the world of fashion, style, interior design, food, and travel. We want it to reflect our personal Scandinavian style with a focus on minimalism and simplicity. We feel like we have found our niche in the social media world and we are so grateful for the amazing response we have received in such a short period of time.
We have talked about developing it into a complete brand that could potentially lead to other exciting possibilities.
10.3K followers!!! How have you been able to get so much attention so quickly?
If you have fun with it and the intention isn’t to gain followers, followers will come. And yes, that’s totally cliché but not necessarily false. Having said that, we’re definitely guilty of hash and geo tagging the crap out of our posts.
What does the future of Stockholm via Oslo look like?
Going forward, our intention is to keep sharing our vision with our followers in a personal and interactive way by focusing on SvO as a lifestyle brand. We also want to expand our name in the social media world by continuing to promote both Scandinavian and international brands, bloggers, and designers. Our hope is that our followers will use SvO as a one-stop inspiration hub where they can get ideas for everything from daily outfits and home décor to party planning and traveling. Finally, our goal is to continue to evolve our vision, grow our following base and potentially take Stockholm via Oslo beyond Instagram so that we can use our success as a foundation for a more comprehensive brand.
The duo is a great example of not only the relationships that can be built at TRU, but how a little creativity and passion can go a long way. Check out some samples of their daily posts.
