WHILE HE WAS WORKING ON Acne's spring 2013 collection—the long, floaty parachute-fabric skirts and T-shirts emblazoned with the word "music" that are in stores now—Jonny Johansson listened to a lot of Emmylou Harris. "It was a bit surreal. She talks about women, the difference between a woman who has experience and a woman who is young and free. She was painting pictures in a sense," he says dreamily. "I could see this woman, in a white dress."

Johannson, the cofounder and designer of Acne Studios,...