“If there’s pressure in the business, it reflects on the family.”

Synchronization occasionally takes time. For Emma Hedlund and Saif Bakir, the engaged couple behind CMMN SWDN’s understated yet unconventional menswear, it took a two-year friendship (and “a lot of polite behavior,” according to Bakir) before romance emerged, six years before the pair launched a line of clothing together, and several seasons more before they realized they were each seizing on the very same inspirations and ideas.

Today the couple shares a whitewashed converted pub in London, where they operate their business on one floor and, with barely any separation, their home life on another. Since launching in 2012, the brand has undergone changes, as Bakir and Hedlund, now 36 and 37 respectively, grew together as designers; it’s become a reflection of their synchronicit...