Dreams and Love

Small talk

Dreams and Love

For Emelie and Gustaf Törling a home is not a place. It’s a feeling, a lifestyle, an adventure. It’s within themselves and together with their two daughters.    

Dreams and Love

Designer Emelie Törling and creative director Gustaf Törling with their kids Aymeline and Anaïs.

Dreams and Love
Dreams and Love

White sofa, Ghost Gervasoni. Rug, Dusty Deco. Lounge chairs, Mario Bellini Camaleonda. Marble table, handmade in New York. Original artwork above sofa is by Emelie Törling. Photo art on the right hand side on the wall with the two women and woman swimming with dolphin is by Richard Avedon. Artwork resting on the floor  below is original by James Cannon. Vase with roses is one of two from Rosebowl Market Los Angeles. Hans Wegner folding chairs. Sofa lamps are vintage. Original photo by Helmut Newton.

Dreams and Love

Gustaf and I are two birds of one feather.

“I’m the mother to my two daughters. I’ve been designing my own brand, Leontine, since 2014 when I lived in Los Angeles – remaking vintage cowboy boots and jewelery from reclaimed silver. Kate Moss, Claire Richardson, Katy England, Cat Power are a few of my clients who has been wearing them, and that’s so insane because Chan (Cat Power) is my idol and Kate is Kate. Last year I collaborated with Italian fashion house Alberta Ferreti’s sub brand Philosophy di Lorenzo Serafini, making a collection boots for their SS18 runway show.
A few years ago I started to paint and it was an awakening for me. I obsess over doing it because there’s nothing like it that I’ve experienced. The complete freedom is kind of narcotic and it’s where I feel at home and most myself. I also dream about learning how to teach. Will I have time for it all? I dream I will. 

We are two birds of one feather. We both have a need, an urge to not stay where its comfortable. I think its either in your bones when you’re born or you never get to feel it, that itch of longing to somewhere unknown. Gustaf and I would always choose a struggling adventure, instead of a safe haven – our safe haven is with each other. We have the same view on life and how to live it and that creates a very strong bond between us, a private world, us against the rest of the world. We’re not alike in our personalities but we share the same views on life. We can struggle with understanding our different expressions around things. But once we get around that we compliment each other perfectly. I learn from him a lot, and I admire his strength, tireless focus, and how god a dad he is. He is my rock. My kids rock.

Love is why we are alive why we keep on going, doing what we do. Life before kids and the love who kept me going was completely different from everything I know now. Love then was flashes, moments, longings, dreams. Life since my daughters came; it all changed. Life changed, I changed and the love changed. Chapter 2. I still die from heartache of a certain song, dreaming of discovering places I haven’t seen, paint for weeks, hike alone in Tibet or hang out with my friends at a music festival and feel the deep love to life from these things. But life since becoming a mother: it’s a constant flow of love and it’s just like nothing else. Every second of it, it’s so much fucking love I’m swimming in it and despite the chaos when everybody cries, or is angry, and when I haven’t had the time to finish a thought in days, I still bade in love for them and from them, and it’s worth everything I’ve done in my life so far to have that. Kill me for saying it because it sounds to much but it’s just dope to have two daughters. Can’t describe it any other way. Gustaf is my love too, he is the friend and the lover and the husband. That’s why I chose him to be the father of the daughters. Easy.

A perfect date night is to enjoy a late dinner, lots of red wine. Or a trip somewhere, anywhere really. 

Gustaf makes me crazy when he is planning too much ahead and forget to enjoy what we’re doing in the moment. But I know that comes with his strong responsible side which I also love and appreciate. I’m dreamy and likes it very casual so sometimes it´s good with a planning mind in a family of four.

A rainy Tuesday in New York still is cinematic when you go out and get milk at 10 pm. Or when you ride the subway in the morning with jazz in your headphones, sharing the ride with all this people who came to NYC for the same reason. Its not bullshit, its really something with the air and vibe in NYC that just get’s to you hard! A vibration straight to your heart that’s impossible to shake off for the rest of your life if you once got it. We both miss living there, sometimes it actually hurts for real. But we decided to leave because it was the best decision at the time for us as a family. 

Creativity to me is hard work. A possibility to get lost and find yourself.

 I always dream of moving somewhere new in the world. That our family get’s to be well and healthy forever and ever.

I five years we are spending time in our future house we will build in Portugal. That’s our dream!“

Dreams and Love
Dreams and Love

“We love to shop vintage. At least that was a sport of ours when we lived in America. Because you can find the most amazing things. It’s such a great feeling to buy something old, something that’s got a story, has patina or is a little broken and nobody else has the same thing. It gets personal and we both love that. “ 

Dreams and Love

All books on the credenza is designed by Gustaf. White lamp from Marginal. Black and white original artwork by Emelie. Art to the right, original by Dan Flavin. Rug, Dusty Deco. Credenza is unknown vintage find from Hudson, New York.

Dreams and Love

Many moons ago I happened to see Emelie on a beach.

“For a second, about 8 years ago, I was on visit in Stockholm and I saw Emelie. I fell completely in love from day one and today I’m a father to two amazing daughters, Anais and Aymeline and a husband to the most wonderful woman in the world. Sometimes in life, all you need is a little bit of luck. I’ve been lucky enough to be blessed with a creative mind which I’m very thankful for. I would make a terrible doctor or lawyer. Creative Direction, film making, music making, cooking… they’re all true passions of mine and the only thing I can do. It’s my life. I currently work as a Chief Brand Officer/Creative Director at EF in Switzerland – before that I was the VP of Global Creative at Estee Lauder in New York, amongst many other things. I have a passion for music and I constantly dream about the day I’ll finally become a rockstar. Still waiting…

Love is the four of us. It’s the wonderful chaos of family: the few minutes alone with Emelie I get (wouldn’t mind a few more), walking hand in hand with Anais talking about everything and nothing, when Aymeline turns around and laughs when I come home from work, the constant longing to always come home to my girls. I thought I knew what it was before. I had no idea. Many moons ago I happened to see Emelie on a beach. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen but for some unknown reason I just didn’t dare to go up to her. Or maybe, that was the reason… I don’t know. A few months after, I stumble into a party at someones apartment and there she is, in the sofa. White t-shirt, leather pants, talking to someone. My heart exploded and I forced myself to start talking to her. 3 months later I proposed. 

I believe that our relationship works so well because we’re complete opposites in many ways and completely the same in a few. Life decisions we make on a whim, we’re both equally adventurous, and in the things where we’re complete opposites we learn from each other. I have become a better man after meeting Emelie, I learn from her every day and will continue to do so for the rest of my life. She is my muse in so many ways.

On a perfect date night I´d like it simple… If by simple you mean staying at a favourite hotel somewhere in the world, just the two of us, order up a few drinks while we’re getting ready to go out, I’ll wait in the hotel bar while Emelie is finishing up, we’ll go to a secret but amazing restaurant for a never-ending dinner, stumble out onto the street just to find a nondescript bar where a jazz-band will be playing, we’ll sit a while and talk and then go back to our hotel together, hand in hand on a warm but not too hot summer evening. Something like that.

What I admire most of Emily is the wisdom, the constant change of focus and inspiration, the love she gives to everyone and everything. My favouritre thing to to do with her is to travel. Play music together. 

But she makes me go crazy when she is Marie Kondo-ing my stuff….

New York. My true home. I miss it terribly and at the same time not at all. Living in NYC is a struggle, no doubt about it. Most of the time it’s tough, challenging, difficult, but then suddenly you realise, if only for a minute, that you’re walking home on Madison Avenue in New York and you fall in love with it all over again. Those moments make it all worth while. New York is beautiful because (almost) everyone is visiting in one way or the other. It truly is an open and inviting environment where everything is possible. That, is magic. There is no “Jantelag”, only dreams.

I dream of so many things. For my family to be healthy and happy, that my secret dream to become a rockstar might still happen, to open up my own restaurant, that we’ll find a place to call home for real.

What I fear? Except that my family will get sick of course… I guess it’s the same as what I dream of. Finding a place to call home probably isn’t what we need. We’re nomads and always will be. We need to embrace it!

In five years I´ll be both my all my girls in our house in southern Portugal after a surf-session with Anais (I don’t think Aymeline will be ready for surfing in five years), chopping up the Mise en Place for tonights big dinner on our terrace.“

Dreams and Love
Dreams and Love

Art above by Chad Pitman. Small vase from Mexico. Brown credenza handmade by Emelies good friends boyfriend Niklas Runesson, a very talented self taught furniture maker. White lamp foot, vintage found in a vintage store in Orient (North Fork) when driving around there on a rainy day two years ago A bunch of EGOISTE magazines, old French fashion and art mags. Long black and white vase from a vintage store in New Paltz, Upstate New York.

Published September 18, 2019