Forbes has turned its attention to Oslo. In a feature on the city’s growing fashion and luxury market, menswear writer Brett F. Braley-Palko speaks with the people shaping it, from Oslo Runway to the Steen & Strøm department store, and with the Norwegian brands finding an audience beyond Norway. New Movements is one of them.
A city finding its own voice
For years, the Scandinavian fashion conversation centred on Copenhagen and Stockholm. Forbes makes the case that Oslo is now earning its own place: international buyers and editors are spending more time in the city, luxury houses are investing in its centre, and Norwegian designers are reaching customers far from home.
What makes Oslo different, the article suggests, is its idea of luxury. Space, quiet, quality and nature close at hand matter more than logos. Many of the brands featured share a certain quiet confidence: they let the product do the talking.
Four generations of shoemaking
Our part of the story starts with Nils Johnny Evensen, Martin’s great-grandfather. Born in Oslo in 1893, he trained under a royal court shoemaker and continued his apprenticeship in Germany. In 1916 he opened his own workshop, where he made new shoes and repaired old ones, because a good pair was meant to last.
More than a century later, Martin founded New Movements in Oslo in 2017 to carry that craft forward. Every pair is designed in Oslo and hand-crafted in Portugal, using organic, recycled and recyclable materials wherever possible.
“Circularity isn’t a new idea for us. It’s an old one the industry forgot.”
Martin Evensen, founder
Built to last, and to be recycled
That line sums up how we work. Repairing and reusing were part of everyday shoemaking long before anyone called it circular design. Our job is to bring that thinking into shoes made for modern life: precisely made, comfortable from the first step and designed to stay in use for as long as possible.
We’re proud to appear alongside Norwegian names such as Cavour, Livid and Holzweiler in a piece about where Oslo fashion is heading, and grateful to Forbes for telling our story.