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Monthly archives: May 2011

30 years of Swedish Fashion

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Filippa K won the award in 1997 with this collection. Foto: Karin Smeds

For the last three years I have had the honour to sit on the jury for the most prestigious of Swedish fashion awards, the Guldknappen (Golden Button), which was instigated in 1981 by Damernas Värld (Ladies’ World), a Swedish fashion magazine for women.

This year is the 30th anniversary of the prize and no, I can’t tell you it goes to! But what I can tell you is that Nordiska Museet is holding an exhibition based on all the designers who’ve won the award over the years. You can see the list here, not exactly household names from an international perspective (although if you’re in the fashion business you might have heard of for example Jonny Johansson of Acne, Filippa Knutsson of Filippa K, Lars Nilsson who was head designer for Bill Blass and Nina Ricci, Ann-Sofie Back and perhaps Marcel Marongiu).

The interesting thing is that the award goes to a collection, not a designer life’s work, and therefore the collection represents Swedish fashion that particular year. Damernas Värld has been saving all of them for posterity, making Guldknappen a unique summary and survey of Swedish fashion and the times. In 2008 they were donated to Nordiska Museet where they form the basis for the exhibition..

Guldknappen 1981-2011 opens on June 10 and the idea is to try to show what it means to be a fashion designer beyond the glitz and the glamour. I’ve known many fashion designers who complain that the fashion world isn’t glamorous at all, so I guess this will please them.

Visitors will learn how fashion design is often a shoestring budget operation and hopefully this will earn designers some respect. After all, it’s even more impressing that they can create beauty without the means of an international luxury house at their disposal.

In August, this year’s winner will be announced together with the winner of the recently instigated Guldknappen for accessory design. See you at the party!

Daniel Björk - Fashion

May 26, 2011

Millennium style

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Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander. Photo: Yellow Bird

I’ve been wanting to say something about the Stieg Larsson trilogy and fashion, but I’ve been at a loss, because Lisbeth Salander’s gothic punk style doesn’t really feel very Swedish to me. Even if this style isn’t British anymore, but international, it feels wrong to claim it as ours.

But then I started to think about the fact that Lisbeth Salander in many ways is a very Swedish heroine. For one, she is a strong and independent woman, a feminist with a sexual fluidity. We do strong women in this country, but we do them in a certain style. Salander dresses in a unisex way, she’s boyish, both in body shape and style. She shuns feminine clothes unless she needs them as a disguise. She’s not glamorous, she’s gritty. She’s not girly, she likes boxing and riding motorcycles. Her clothing reflects this as she dresses in hoodies or tank tops.

Strong women are nothing new in Swedish film, the most obvious example being the movies of Ingmar Bergman, where confrontations between strong females were a recurring motif.

But all this ties in with a sense of style that is at the heart of Swedish fashion, an empowerment of women – not through sexual display, but rather through dignity and personal inner strength. I’ve mentioned before that Swedish clothes are seldom sexy in that Latin way. Instead we make clothes for clearly independent women – subjects, not objects.

This is why Lisbeth Salander, in all her social awkwardness and subcultural bent, is Swedish in her style. She reflects a need for a look that states independency and self-reliance that is very present in Swedish culture. She might do it in an over-the-top way, but that is the prerogative of fiction.

Daniel Björk - Fashion

May 24, 2011

Swedish fashion blogs rule!

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Carolina Engman of Fashion Squad. Photo by Carolina Engman.

Fashion blogs are becoming ever more powerful in Sweden, even though there seems to be some confusion about which blogs are actual fashion blogs, as opposed to lifestyle blogs by girls who just happen to like fashion.

Some of the bigger blogs are becoming powerhouse publications in their own right, employing people left right and centre, but I thought I’d give you basic list of whom to follow.

Agnes Braunerhielm
My collegue at Rodeo is one of few well-known fashion bloggers who doesn’t post pictures of herself. She writes long, dwindling posts on the intricacies of Rei Kawakubo’s design and her love for Alexander McQueen. This blog shouts out for Google translation.

Style by Kling
Maybe the only Swedish blogger who is making a name for herself internationally as well. Elin Kling has her own magazine, collaborated with H&M for the Swedish market and is featured in the latest issue of Industrie Magazine (which might not be too surprising seeing they are working together, but still, it’s a magazine which is read by, well, the industry).

Chloé Schuterman
Twelve-year-old Chloé Schuterman caused a furore a year ago when she appeared on TV with her mother Nathalie (who owns luxury fashion boutique Nathalie Schuterman) talking about her Balenciaga bag she got when she turned ten. A year later she is blogging about her fabulous life. She turns 13 in July.

Rebecca Simonsen
Rebecca Simonsen is a club promoter with a penchant for dramatic outfits. This makes her into a rare bird in sleek and minimal Sweden, but it is surely also the secret behind the success of her blog.

Fashion Squad
Fashion Squad by Carolina Engman is more of fashion shoot dressed up as a blog. Engman is a freelance stylist and models the clothes herself in professional looking pictures.

Stockholm Street Style
Many people are impressed with the way Swedish people dress, especially in Stockholm. If you don’t have the opportunity to get here, just check out the Stockholm Streetstyle blog to see the best dressed people of the capital.

An Editing Eye
I wanted to include An Editing Eye, because it represents an undergrowth of budding fashion journalists who are dismayed with the lack of critique and actual writing about fashion among the Swedish fashion bloggers. For a good look into how many fashion lovers feel, Google translate like crazy.

Daniel Björk - Fashion

May 19, 2011

Fashion as spectacle

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Josefin Arnell is one of the students showing her graduate collection tonight.

Tonight, if you happen to be in Stockholm, you can attend the graduation fashion show for Beckmans College of Design at Berns Hotel. Tickets are available to the public and can be bought at the door.

Public fashion shows is not a new trend in fashion. In the Eighties, fashion designers such as Thierry Mugler staged gigantic spectacles in stadiums, inviting thousands of people. Swedish designer Carin Wester’s S/S 2009 collection was shown in Berzelii Park outside the main show venue at Berns Hotel so that anyone interested could watch it and each season the Cheap Monday show is open to the public.

From what was essentially a way to show a fashion house’s clothes to the press and buyers, fashion shows have become more and more of a spectacle, a form of entertainment. Although the main idea of the fashion show still is to show the clothes, the show season is more of ritual, prompting some fashion critics, like New York Times’ Cathy Horyn to toy with the idea of reviewing the collections based on what’s in the showrooms at the so called re-sees.

Public fashion shows are now held everywhere, even in towns in northern Sweden, like Umeå Fashion Weekend, which showcases what’s in store in the town’s fashion boutiques, while brands like Tiger of Sweden show their current collection.

It is fascinating that there is such an interest in watching beautiful men and women walk to music on a catwalk, but I guess it beats some sad cover band playing on the town square. It is fashion as entertainment and performance, perhaps equal to watching those street entertainers who pretend to be statues. It is a day out with the family.

While there are some shows that work well as a performance or art installation, many others will come across as dull presentations of clothes. In the case of Beckmans though, I don’t think at will be the result. Fashion students tend to be a lot more radical in their ideas than most fashion companies. I wonder if people going to see the show will understand anything of the clothes, but maybe the point is just that; to show that fashion can often be strange, startling odd and radical. Not everything in fashion is about the body beautiful.

Daniel Björk - Fashion

May 16, 2011