18       life is easy there are people for whom a simple categorisation doesn’t work. their variety, their dedication and their creative work makes it impossible to pigeonhole them. christian stadil clearly belongs to this varied species of non-categorisable beings: on the one hand, he is the owner and creative director of the danish sports brand hummel, but on the other hand he is also a cosmopolitan, a philosopher, mountaineer, buddhist – and much more ... ”if you forget yourself, you become the universe.“ this quote isn’t the title of a philosophical guidebook but adorns the business card of christian stadil, owner and creative mind of the danish sports brand hummel. this quote not only embodies the company philosophy of the brand founded back in 1923, but also stands for stadil’s very personal philosophy of life as a private person: free yourself and you will experience freedom. every human being, every character stands for an entire universe. if you want to share it, you should not just take but also give – and don’t take yourself too seriously. for stadil, the immediate connection between his personal philosophy of life and that of his economic actions is an essential basis for his work. for him, it wouldn’t even be possible to strictly separate his job from his private life – even if a sports brand doesn’t at first sight seem to have much to do with global warming. and this can even result in the fact that you mainly talk about social and environmental policies at a fashion trade fair and not just about the fashion news and trends of the upcoming season. after all, the changes in our environment and global incidences and radical changes concern all of us – and fashion and sports happen to be the most important parameters and “reflectors”. for about seven years, 34-year-old christian stadil has been the owner and creative director of the legendary danish sports brand hummel. the former danish law student has turned the team sports-oriented brand “hummel – characters since 1923” into a holistic lifestyle company. stadil has managed to span the company range from a stylish celebrity trend label to equipping various sports teams from the fields of soccer, handball, basketball, volleyball, ice hockey etc. – and to enjoy great credibility in all of these areas. his very personal source of inspiration becomes evident when buddhist principles are combined with corporate management. for instance, it’s thanks to stadil that hummel has been the outfitter of the national tibetan soccer team since 2001 and thus managed to set an economic example of great symbolic power. the combination of economy and spirituality – “corporate karma”, as stadil calls it – seems to work, as you can tell by looking at the company’s turnover figures. christian stadil talked about the scandinavian way of thinking and acting, about freedom and rituals. dear christian, what was your childhood in denmark like? growing up in denmark means to have a lot of freedom. kids can play outside everywhere because people think that it’s important for them to act out their urge to move. also, we have a wide range of educational institutions and alternative schools in denmark. there’s the right kind of school for every child and fostering the development of the children’s personalities is always the top priority. there are many schools which are dedicated to creative expressiveness from a very early age. they offer dancing, singing and music classes to emphasize the sensuous side of life. for my part, i was very lucky and had a beautiful childhood. my parents cared for me a lot. in the beginning, i attended a very conservative school, later i even came into contact with the army and studied asian martial arts when i was 18, which poses a big contrast to my current way of living. my mother worked as a model during the 1970ies and i think this feminine, aesthetic energy provided me with a strong counterbalance to all those rough, military symbols that initially appealed to me. i used to work as a child model for some time, too. not just children but also liberal thinking are given ample space for development in the scandinavian countries. do you think that this freedom is the best breeding ground for economic-social thinking and so-called “common sense”? definitely! in denmark and the whole of scandinavia we have a long tradition of freedom of expression. denmark was also one of the first countries to open up the parliament to female members. there has always been a liberal atmosphere for forming free thoughts and ideas. denmark was also the first country to legitimize civil partnerships of homosexuals. another symbol of liberal thinking is the so-called “autonomous community of christiania” in a part of copenhagen. this “social experiment” was started by a group of youths during the early 1970ies and until today is considered a successful project of freedom and democracy. for a long time, our leading politicians didn’t know what to do about this “free town” in the middle of copenhagen. a couple of years ago, representatives from government and commerce were invited to discuss good compromises and define sensible goals together with the residents of christiania. by the way, one of those invited business representatives happened to be me ... (laughs) ... i heard that today many “christianites” have become active and sought-after players in the danish business world ... yes, that’s right. especially in cultural institutions you will find a lot of people who live or have lived in christiania. for instance, the ceo of denmark’s second biggest theatre used to live there for a long time. our company has good relations with christiania too, especially regarding design and the “christianias bike” project that has become an institution in the whole of denmark and beyond. these three-wheeled bikes are equipped with a small “load area” in the front of the bike, where people can transport their kids or their shopping or other goods. besides that, one of the biggest importers for asian and indian cultural assets is based in christiania. some time ago i ordered a huge, 500 kg buddha statue over this importer. now the statue is sitting on my balcony ... you happen to be a practicing buddhist yourself ... you could say that i am not a person who tends to categorise things into schemes or black and white. i don’t judge by beautiful or ugly, old or young, man or woman, director, christian, buddhist or whatever ... i try to see people and things in an unbiased way. i have been a practising buddhist for many years now and have studied the buddhist beliefs with buddhist masters in tibet and japan. for me, the buddhist attitude towards life is very inspiring and liberating. you seem to have a very open-minded and varied approach to your role as owner and creative mastermind of the hummel sports brand: hummel has been the official outfitter of the national tibetan soccer team for many years, you also support the world wildlife fund for nature (wwf) and are actively involved in fighting global warming and many other charitable projects. do you think that everybody has many more opportunities to be active in their personal surroundings than they think? i call all these activities that go beyond the actual core business “corporate karma” or “business karma”. a kind of spiritual economic concept. i am currently working on a book about this topic that will be published in europe next year. it’s a concept of “spiritual handling” that can be applied in everyday business life as well as in your personal life. in this context i also work together with my father, who runs a big business in the food industry. in addition, i do consulting for companies like “scandinavian airlines” and try to come up with concepts for visions and missions in their field ... but i would never call myself a saint or preacher. just like anybody else i also enjoy going to parties and drinking beer, but i always try to give something in return when i take something. my motto is: what goes around, comes around. for a long time, “fair trade“ and fashionable coolness were seen as an impossible combination, in the business world as well as for consumers. however, during the last couple of years, things have changed a lot and environmental awareness has become “state of the art”. why do you think is it that many people and companies are beginning to change their views now? it’s very interesting to see that the trend is going towards environmental dedication and sustainability. i am a member of a danish think tank, a pooling of interests of the country’s biggest companies. one of the most important values of the biggest companies is clearly sustainability, for instance regarding the use of solar energy or stuff like that. these days, i’m going to fly to ghana (africa) together with ten other well-known people from denmark on behalf of the government to initiate a big aid project there. these are very big and responsible challenges on a global scale. i think that today you have a big responsibility as an entrepreneur that reaches out far beyond the borders of your actual industry or country. are these values also reflected in your shops? in a way, we try to apply these values to the entire hummel company. our monostores act as a kind of “messenger showrooms” where we try to convey our love of authenticity and originality: for instance, we only use natural materials like wood from denmark, and the light system implies the typical lighting conditions of the northern regions. moreover, many decorative elements of our shops have been developed by the renowned danish designer arne jacobsen. we try to convey basic values and at the same time tell stories from our homeland. in a way, we are storytellers, as all scandinavians like to be. at the moment, we run more than 100 brand shops across the world, most of them in asia. in the future, we also want to open new monoshops in europe and the german-speaking countries. talking about trends and tendencies in the world of fashion and lifestyle you always tend to come across concepts like authenticity, genuineness and originality. where do you think people’s increased longing for true and authentic values comes from? today, many brands have become interchangeable. they don’t have a history or a recognisable philosophy. we can claim that our company has been around since 1923 and that our roots are based in functional sports equipment. however, we also carry the typically “danish” sense of aesthetics and lifestyle and the love of freedom in our souls and we act accordingly. and that’s also a very important thing to communicate. it takes a lot of energy to implement all these projects and ideas and to communicate all these values. what’s your source of energy and where do you find the motivation for the things you do every day? my attitude is this: free yourself of your ego, liberate yourself, hold back a bit, and you will gain lots of energy. what’s more, i think that you should be passionate about everything you do. without passion and love, i would never be able to do the things i do. if i do something passionately, if i give something, then in a way i liberate myself every time anew. which rituals do you like to celebrate most? for me, every day is different from the day before because i’m travelling a lot and i’m not at home that much. however, one thing i can practice every day, no matter where i am, is a kind of “gymnastic ritual”. it’s a kind of mixture between martial arts and yoga, it doesn’t take more than 15 minutes and is very relaxing. this ritual is very important to me, i simply have to do it ... even if i come home a bit tipsy at 5 o’clock in the morning like it was the case some time ago in tokyo. i had been out too long and drank too much sake with some colleagues of mine and crashed into the minibar when i did my exercises in the middle of the night ... (laughs). there’s another ritual i practice after a hard day’s work; when i come home i close all the doors and dim all the lights, i light candles everywhere – of which i must have hundreds – and then i turn on soft music and run myself a bath ... wonderful! and then there’s a sunday ritual together with my girlfriend, who is a lyrical soprano opera singer and sings in church every sunday while i’m still asleep. when she gets home, she gently wakes me up and we have breakfast together, read the paper and spend a few relaxing hours together ... what would you change immediately if you were free to choose? if i could, i would try to make the whole of mankind happy and satisfied. however, i think many things would change for the better if we tried to become aware of the original, elementary basic demands of people. especially people in the very wealthy western countries should change their views in order to spread their wealth to other regions across the world. we should share more and shouldn’t make life so complicated. a lama (nb: buddhist teacher) of mine always says: “life is easy, why make it complicated?“ your favourite clothes? i particularly like functional, sporty clothes with a certain sense of aesthetics – of course from our collection ... (laughs) helmut wolf