Live Moen Johannessen and Hanna Moen Reinsnes: A Wardrobe with Room for Family

At Gobmi, Sámi sisters Live Moen Johannessen and Hanna Moen Reinsnes connect family-made details, contemporary cuts and garments designed for daily wear.

The buttons on Gobmi's Áddjá shirt have a family history before the shirt is worn. The oversized cotton garment has a dropped shoulder and cuffs that can fold up or down. Its removable cufflinks are made from reindeer antler and leather by the designers' father. They must be taken off before washing. That small practical instruction reveals a great deal about the label founded by sisters Live Moen Johannessen and Hanna Moen Reinsnes. The shirt is designed for repeated use, yet carries an object made by hand from a material with a particular place in Sámi life. Neither element cancels the other. The cufflink is both a fastening and a connection between a family member, an animal material and the daily work of dressing. [1][2]

Live and Hanna grew up in Áltá, within Sápmi. Their own account says that they came to understand a part of their Sámi family history when an older relative became ill and began speaking Sámi. That account belongs to them; it is not a universal story of Indigenous identity. The sisters built Gobmi to make contemporary clothes while reclaiming a heritage that had almost disappeared within their family across generations. Norway's national design body, DOGA, names both women as the designers of the label. Current official material places the work between Áltá and Oslo, while the shop sells shirts, sweatshirts, reindeer-leather pieces and accessories rather than a single garment meant to stand for all of Sámi culture. [2][3][4]

A name that refuses to sit still

Gobmi translates as “ghost” in the label's own presentation. The name makes sense alongside the sisters' account of a language suddenly heard within the family and a heritage whose public expression had been interrupted. Yet a ghost is not only a figure of absence. It is a presence that changes a room. Gobmi's clothing brings material and naming into places where Sámi fashion has often been overlooked: an ordinary wardrobe, a city shop, a fashion presentation. The pieces do not require every wearer to reenact a traditional dress. They let a cut, a word, an embroidery or a material carry a specific relation to Sápmi while remaining clothes for use now. [2][4]

The label launched its first full collection, Bearaš, in November 2022; its site glosses the word as “family.” The timing matters because the project had begun to draw attention before there was a collection to buy. A 2021 interview in Melk & Honning described the sisters' wish for Sámi urban wear, and Gobmi later appeared at Oslo Runway. The brand's own account records a 2023 newcomer award from DOGA. That sequence suggests a design problem larger than launching a logo. The sisters had to make a wardrobe that could stand on its own as clothing while telling a story about family and cultural return. [2][3][5]

Bearaš is also a useful key to the shop's language. Áddjá is glossed as grandpa, Áhkku as grandma, Eadni as mom, Áhčči as dad, Oabbá as sister. These are product names, not translations invented to make the clothes seem exotic. The repeated kinship terms turn a range of shirts, tees and sweats into a family of objects. A customer can choose an everyday cotton piece without needing to buy a one-off showpiece. At the same time, the garment is named in a language whose place in the sisters' own family history is explicit. The translation helps a wider audience enter; the Sámi word stays in view. [2][6]

The shirt and the cuff

The Áddjá shirt is an effective place to begin because its structure is familiar. Gobmi lists medium-weight cotton, an oversized fit and a dropped shoulder. Those choices create room between the body and the garment. A shoulder seam moved outward loosens the formal line of a conventional shirt, and a foldable cuff lets the wearer decide how much sleeve to show. The antler-and-leather cufflinks are removable, so the piece can be cared for without subjecting them to a wash. This is a modest but precise form of adaptability: a fixed garment can be handled in more than one way, and the most singular detail can be protected. [1]

The shop identifies the shirt as made in Norway and India. That description resists any easy claim that every stage of a Sámi-founded label happens in one place. The design's meaning does not depend on hiding the route of its production. The antler cufflinks made by the sisters' father, the cotton body and the sites of manufacture are different parts of the object's history. The finished shirt brings them together on the sleeve. The label's own wording does not give a complete supply-chain audit, so its manufacturing geography is best understood as a disclosed fact about this product, not a blanket guarantee about the whole line. [1]

There is care in the way this detail avoids turning the entire shirt into a precious object. Cotton can take repeated wear. The cufflinks can be removed. A fold at the cuff changes the look without a permanent alteration. The garment invites handling, not only looking. The antler piece still asks for attention, particularly when the shirt is washed or stored, but that demand is proportionate to its role. It is a crafted fastening with a material character, not a symbol added to a shirt as an afterthought. [1]

The image on a sweatshirt

The Áhčči sweatshirt approaches a different problem. Gobmi describes a heavy organic-cotton unisex garment with a boxy, oversized fit, a dropped shoulder and voluminous arms. An embroidery on the front depicts a girl in a ládjogahpir, the horn-shaped Sámi headwear. The drawing was made by Sámi artist Kamilla Triumf, whom the company credits on the product page. DOGA also identifies her contribution to the first collection. This is an important distinction in a label built by two sisters: the artist's design belongs to Triumf, while Live and Hanna made the decision to bring it into the garment and into a wider wardrobe. [3][7]

A sweatshirt is a direct surface for an image, but the shape around that image still matters. The boxy torso and full sleeves give the embroidered figure space. The shoulder does not pin the garment to a narrow, tailored frame. It can be worn over another layer, on different bodies, or in ordinary movement without losing the central drawing. The label lists the piece as unisex and shows it on models of different heights in the same medium size. Those details make the intended looseness concrete, though they cannot predict fit for every wearer. [7]

DOGA explains that the ládjogahpir has a history of suppression and return. On the sweatshirt, the headwear is neither an anonymous pattern nor an attempt to turn a traditional garment into casual costume. It appears as a figure drawn by a named Sámi artist, placed on an object built for contemporary daily use. The credit changes how the piece should be understood. A wearer encounters not only the sisters' label but another maker's work. The embroidery keeps the image durable and integrated with the cloth, while its placement at the front makes the reference openly visible. [3][7]

Gobmi's own product description gives the material as certified organic cotton. That is a specific product claim. It does not make every stage of the sweatshirt's production environmentally harmless, nor does the embroidery by itself make the object culturally complete. Its achievement is more precise: an accessible wardrobe form carries a credited artwork and a recognisable design decision about scale, fit and visibility. The result can be worn repeatedly without requiring the wearer to treat the garment as an exhibition object. [7]

What reindeer leather changes

The label's reindeer-leather pieces shift the emphasis from image to material. A Moarsi shirt, named in the shop as “girlfriend,” is listed as 100 percent reindeer leather with reindeer-antler buttons and manufacture in Finland. The page notes that the particular showpiece for sale has been worn at public events and may show signs of previous use. That unusual disclosure makes the garment's history part of the offer. It also changes the expectation that a fashion piece must arrive with every mark of use erased. [8]

Leather behaves differently from cotton. It can soften and take a shape with wear, but it cannot be put through the same washing routine as the Áddjá shirt. Gobmi advises keeping the Moarsi piece away from water and harsh conditions, and notes that natural marks may remain visible in the hide. Those instructions are material facts, not a promise that the piece is effortless to own. Reindeer leather brings a different texture, care regime and cost to the wardrobe. The antler buttons continue the material vocabulary of the Áddjá cufflinks, but now the hide itself becomes the garment's main surface. [1][8]

The company's range includes Moarsi and Irgi shirts and trousers, Násti skirts in several colours, and a Feasta bag. The names translate on the site as girlfriend, boyfriend, star and party. A matching leather shirt and trouser can make a full look, while a skirt or bag moves the material into a smaller or more portable form. DOGA highlights reindeer leather as part of the label's attempt to connect fashion design with reindeer husbandry in the north. That does not establish that every hide is sourced through the same chain or that a particular product has a measurable ecological benefit. It does show why the material is more than a luxurious texture in this collection. [3][6][8]

The Násti skirt is useful beside the cotton shirts. Its presence in dark blue, green and metallic pink on the current shop reveals that Gobmi is willing to use saturated colour and fashion play with a material frequently described only through tradition or utility. The colour does not erase the hide's origin. It lets the garment participate in a city wardrobe whose wearer may dress for a party, work or a public event. The Feasta bag makes a similar move through an accessory. Such pieces expand the possible life of reindeer leather beyond a single ceremonial reading. [6]

Building a piece before it is cut

DOGA reports that Live and Hanna use CLO3D to develop digital versions of garments before samples are sewn. That tool can help a designer examine volume and proportions before committing cloth to a physical prototype. DOGA presents the approach as a way to avoid some unnecessary material use and shipping of samples. The benefit is specific, not a complete environmental account of the label. A digital model cannot tell a hand exactly how reindeer leather will age, or how an embroidered sweatshirt will feel after years of washing. It can, however, move some decisions about shape and fit earlier in the process. [3]

The tension between digital design and irregular natural material gives the practice some of its force. A computer can preview a shirt's shoulder or a skirt's outline, while antler and leather retain variations no rendering can fully settle. The sisters' work asks both kinds of knowledge to meet. A pattern must be repeatable enough for a product line; a hide or handmade button remains singular. Rather than hiding that contradiction, their garments give it different forms. The Áddjá shirt protects a handmade detail by making it removable. The Moarsi showpiece asks the buyer to accept signs of a previous public life. The sweatshirt translates a drawn figure into embroidery on a repeatable cotton shape. [1][3][7][8]

The sisters have also described the importance of making Sámi design available outside tourist or museum contexts. DOGA records their frustration that such work was often confined to those settings. The point is not that museums have no value. It is that a culture continues through present-day decisions: what to make, whom to work with, how a garment fits, and where it can be bought and worn. Gobmi's move into a department-store pop-up during Oslo Runway in 2026 placed that proposition in a highly visible retail environment. In an interview for the event, the founders said they wanted the pieces to be wearable by anyone and the celebration of Sámi heritage to welcome more people. [3][9]

A partnership, not a single signature

Gobmi's story is often told through the sisters together. DOGA lists Live Moen Johannessen and Hanna Moen Reinsnes as the two designers. Their shop uses the first names Live and Hanna, and a 2021 interview printed an earlier form of Hanna's surname. Current company and DOGA profiles name her Hanna Moen Reinsnes. The changes in naming do not alter the central fact: the label is a partnership. The public sources do not assign each seam or silhouette to one sister, and the credited embroidery by Kamilla Triumf makes the collaborative field larger still. [2][3][5]

The label's location is similarly multiple. The founders are from Áltá, the shop places Gobmi in both Sápmi and Oslo, and individual products disclose manufacture in Norway, India or Finland. A Nordic fashion map can easily flatten these into one national address. The clothes offer a more exact geography. A shirt assembled across more than one country carries a cufflink made by the founders' father. A leather showpiece made in Finland belongs to a Sámi design practice rooted further north. A sweatshirt brings an artist from Kautokeino into the same wardrobe as cotton streetwear. [1][2][7][8]

The brand's 2026 appearance on Oslo Runway's official schedule confirms that this is a continuing design practice rather than a historical project. Its current shop gives Bearaš an afterlife in products that can be selected, cared for and worn. The pieces vary greatly in access and maintenance: a cotton shirt asks something different of a buyer than a leather showpiece. Their shared quality is an insistence that a garment can carry a named relationship without becoming a costume. The embroidered figure, the antler cufflink and the worn leather surface each make the same wider point through a different physical decision. Cultural return here has to be made in cloth, fitted to a body and lived with afterward. [1][2][3][4][6]