Kasper Hostrup - We don´t follow trends at least not in a traditional way
Konstantin Vulkov: You were a buyer for large stores. Tell us the difference between how you shop then and how you shop now for your small shop?
Kasper Hostrup: The biggest difference is I use to bye with focus on trend and attention to a broad selection of potential consumers – everything I buy now is based on my own aesthetics and love for quality.
Konstantin: With which brand you started to “build” your own shop? Which one was your first choice?
Kasper: Actually it was British brand “Folk” which I still stock almost 7 years after opening the first store and we kind of evolved in the same direction – today Folk is performing better than ever at GOODS.
Konstantin: Do you remember the first person who bought something from the shop? In a way - those first days must be quite interesting?
Kasper: I remember a lot of customers, but one of the first was a very stylish woman buying for her boyfriend – back then and still we get very personal with our customers and we talked for a while and I learned she was curator for the big Copenhagen based museum called Glyptoteket. I always get quite excited when people who work in the classic professions of aesthetics (art curators, Architects, industrial designers etc.) like what I am doing.
Konstantin: In one interview you said you are not a fashion store, I mean - not a store with products that are fashionable this season. How you find timeless quality, the essentials?
Kasper: I mean we don´t follow trends at least not in a traditional way and we are not buying brands for the sake of brands – we are product driven, quality and sense of design is our standard. Our selection is found through extensive online research, our vast international network in the business and lots of traveling. 
Konstantin: What type of menswear clothing proved to be really best selling, unexpectedly for you - trousers, shoes, shirts, accessories?
Kasper: It is not so much one category – it is just the fact that our clientele is focusing more on product than price, but if I had to pick a few: Common Projects sneakers, Filson bags, Moscot sunglasses, Arc´teryx Veilance outerwear and the mercerized pique series from in house brand Capital Goods.
Konstantin: How you are transferring the atmosphere from the physical shop to the online one?
Kasper: Good question, we figured out that the way to stand out amongst all the big players online is to try and bring atmosphere and personality to our site. So when we resently re-launched our site we added some new features which all are work in progress. We do customer portraits, a neighbourhood guide and Q&A´s with business parterns, founders/designers/creators of the brands we work with – all this is to give our online clientele something to reflect on. 
Konstantin: Choose a song you would play at the store now?
Kasper: The Girl From Ipanema – Joao Gilberto and Stan Getz
Konstantin: Choose a summer destination?
Kasper: This Summer I will be driving my 1962 Volkwagen Beetle to at wooden cottage near beach and forrest 45 min north of Copenhagen – It´s gonna be a couple of weeks of bbq´ing, reading books, relaxing at the beach with friends and family.
--- Kasper Hostrup is founder of the wonderful menswear shop GOODS. The shop, a must-seen while in Danish capital, launched in 2008 in one of Copenhagen's hippest neighbourhoods, Østerbro.
Address: Østerbrogade 44, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark