Houdini Sportswear

Hello all,

It's a blast reading about your respective experiences and challenges during your internships and field studies. It is very interesting to see how diversified we are in the tasks but also in the type of companies that are there.I am working at Houdini Sportswear's main office in Stockholm. It's been three weeks that I have been hanging out with the "Houdiniacs" although it has only been two weeks of work :).

My first week with the company was spent in Northern Sweden in the small town of Abisko. Houdini is a partner in a ski/freeride camp called the "Pure". It was a great opportunity to get to know some of my future colleagues and my supervisor, Eva, thought it would be a great way to start my internship and I couldn't agree more. The only downside was the 17 hour train up and down which left my brain a little wobbly once I got onto solid ground, but in the end it was completely worth it with 4 days of nice skiing and some beautiful views.

Reaching the summit in Norway

The following weeks have been just as fun and interesting. I am working for Eva, the CEO of the company, and she has asked me to look into different sustainability assessment tools so as to analyse and determine which one if any would be applicable to Houdini. I have been really impressed to what extent everyone in the company, from management to design and transport and production, have ingrained the concept of sustainability in every decision they take. When you are listening to another lecture about circular economies or sustainable practices and you thinking to yourself that this is a load of rubbish. It is great to see that there are actually real possibilities to grow and develop your business without compromising on your social and environmental values.

I have also started on my own little project whilst being here. I was really inspired by the lecture that was given by Gilles and Robin from product DNA so I have started to try and map Houdini's complete supply chain so as try and trace it back as far back as possible. It has been going pretty well although at times it takes a long time before I get any answers from some of the suppliers.

I will let you know how all this is going and what other adventures I undertake whilst being out here. Looking forward to reading about your respective times.

Much love,

Andrew