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Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Stockholm A/W 2012: Womenswear Trend Report

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Over a hectic three days earlier this week, the A/W 2012 edition of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week took place in Stockholm. We scampered from one show to the next and scrounged for food when we had a few spare minutes, but once we settled into the venue and the lights were dimmed, the excitement of what’s to come on the runway made it all worthwhile.

With more and more international eyes turning towards Sweden for the latest in nonchalant style and clothes people will actually wear out of the house, the shows provide a glimpse of the next big (wearable) trends in fashion. Here’s a run-down of the top five in womenswear:

1. Grey

Every conceivable shade of grey was represented in nearly all the women’s collections. Whether this is a reflection of the gloomy times or merely a small side-step from that retail favourite black, the trick for it to read as “A/W 2012” is to wear grey head to toe. Altewai.Saome, Hernández-Cornet and Busnel are the perfect examples.

Altewai.Saome A/W 2012

2. Flatforms

Love ‘em or leave ‘em (I love ‘em), but I believe “flatforms” (flat platform shoes) pretty much personify Swedish fashion – they provide height without the hurt, and thereby stylishness without the vanity. While Whyred went British creepers-crazy, Cheap Monday, Minimarket and V Ave Shoe Repair all showed fantastic versions of their own.

V Ave Shoe Repair A/W 2012

3. Peplums

The dictionary calls it “a short overskirt or ruffle attached at the waistline of a jacket, blouse, or dress,” but I think of it as a curious flourish about the hips. Either way, I counted several collections with peplums, Carin Wester and Altewai.Saome being the main proponents. I can see its appeal: peplums visually narrow the waist and accentuate a woman’s curves.

Carin Wester A/W 2012

4. Floor-length skirts/dresses

It’s been awhile that we’ve seen skirts and dresses this long. But to keep it interesting (and sexy), most had thigh-high slits – Filippa K, Dagmar and newcomer Maria Nordström, especially. What I really like about this trend is that you can go glam with heels or comfy with flats. Maybe even the aforementioned flatforms?

Dagmar A/W 2012

5. Loose trousers/jeans

Could it be? Are we really moving away from skinny jeans and trousers? Judging by the A/W 2012 shows, the answer is a resounding “Yes!” Even Cheap Monday, the fervent purveyor of skin-tight denim switched things up and gave us the baggiest jeans possible, cinched high at the waist. Elsewhere, Rodebjer and Filippa K favoured fluid wide-leg trousers.

Cheap Monday A/W 2012

Other wonderful and weird things from Fashion Week:

  • Spike Lee was at the Dagmar show. Huh?
  • H&M held a show with the finalists of their first ever Design Award. The winner was Stine Riis.
  • Noomi Rapace opened Fashion Week with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and attended several shows.
  • Overheard: Really sunburned American guy #1: “DUDE, that’s the ORIGINAL Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” Really sunburned American guy #2: “NO WAY!” Really sunburned American guy #1: “WAY.” Really sunburned American guy #2: “NO WAY!” Really sunburned American guy #1: “WAY.” (I walked away at this point. For all I know, it went on this way for a while.)

 

All photos by Kristian Löveborg, courtesy of the ASFB.

Sabrina Shim - Fashion

February 4, 2012

Home Swede Home

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A typical Swedish look? The Local Firm A/W 2011

“You’re not from around here, are you?” he asked.

“Uh, what do you mean?” I countered.

“Well, you’re wearing some pretty wild trainers.” He paused. “And too many colours.”

“Oh.”

We had only just moved to Stockholm and were out on a Saturday night getting acquainted with our new hometown, meeting new people, the whole lot. I thought that being Canadian-born, of Korean ancestry and going out with a boisterous Brit would give me away as a ‘foreigner’, but no. Apparently, it was a pair of Eley Kishimoto trainers and bright pink jacket over a printed dress that did it.

Fast forward four years and those beloved trainers sit at the back of the closet. What’s changed? Besides the inevitable – growing older, being sucked into certain trends – I’m only now realising that Sweden has actually had a profound effect on my personal style.

It is, of course, quite common to be influenced by the culture of the country you live in. Hence the crazy patterned trainers and slightly eclectic dress sense – I had lived in the UK for six years prior to the move. But in reality, my “London look” was not particularly different from my “New York look” or “Toronto look”, just revved up.

A T-shirt from my so-called London days.

Sweden, however, has changed me. Sure, the land of skinny jeans and the sea of head-to-toe black (or grey) at first made me: 1) get even skinnier jeans (Hello, Cheap Monday!); and 2) become self-conscious about my tendency towards prints and colour. But it’s the emphasis on wearability amongst the majority of Swedish labels that has affected the contents of my closet and, perhaps most importantly, my general attitude towards fashion.

I only want pieces that will work with the rest of my wardrobe. I want to be able to wear them on a daily basis. I’m tired of “occasion-dressing” and items that scream a certain season. I want timeless. I want season-less. I want good basics. Comfort is key. But I don’t want boring. I like clever design twists on classics. I love playing with proportions. “Effortless” is my byword.

Unsurprisingly, more established Swedish labels such as Acne, Whyred and Filippa K fit the bill perfectly. They’ve been advancing notions of wearability without forsaking style for years. And as they continue to expand across the globe, more and more people are cottoning on to this Swedish sensibility.

Alas, I never really abandoned my love of bright colours or prints. I’ve merely worked around it the past few years. So imagine my delight upon attending the S/S 2012 shows during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Stockholm a few weeks ago. Colour galore, and print upon glorious print. Particular standouts include Minimarket (yellow, head-to-toe florals and leopard print), Ida Sjöstedt (florals again and a delicious red) and Josefin Strid (ombre, turquoise and orange).

But if I had to pick one piece to wear straight off the runway, it was an oversized, bright pink knit hooded jumper at Carin Wester. Unlike the bright pink jacket I donned that fateful night four years ago, however, this jumper ticks all the boxes of my new “Swedified” personal style code.

Carin Wester S/S 2012 (Photo: Kristian Löveborg, courtesy of ASFB)

 

Sabrina Shim - Fashion

August 31, 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

The skinny on Swedish denim

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I think I got these skinny jeans in 2000. They were tight fitting then, today they are impossible.

Swedish jeans these days are equal to skinny jeans. Both Acne and Cheap Monday seemed to launch an attack on loose-fitting denim in the 00s and they spared no one – even guys were dragged down the narrow path.

I remember when Cheap Monday premiered their inexpensive jeans. I registered the fact, but wasn’t too much into denim and never understood that this was a phenomenon in the making. Also, skinny denim was already in my wardrobe.

Because as I remember the early 00s, skinny jeans were everywhere in Stockholm. Even the 90s were full of them, what with the stretch jeans that launched the career and company of Filippa K.

Stockholm is often used as a trend watch city when it comes to denim, and it can definitely be argued that the Swedish look and style is in essence a denim style. This is certainly not bad in these casual times, but I still find it intriguing that skinny denim found a home in Sweden.

Perhaps it is the connection with rock subculture – drainpipe jeans are associated with punk rock bands such as the Ramones. But that doesn’t explain the allure of skinny denim when it comes to girls. The Filippa K stretch jean spawned a style movement in the mid 1990s and even though these particular jeans went out of style, the skinny look did not.

I’m afraid I can’t offer anything but a tentative answer, and it’s got to do with the fact that skinny denim styles look fashionable – they are too skinny to be someone’s Sunday sofa jeans, but at the same time they are resolutely casual and relaxed, just through the magic of the material.

In a country where girls had a longing for fashion but felt it was too much to run around in designer dresses and high heels, I wonder if the skinny jean was the perfect solution – both stylish and dressed down.

It certainly seems possible, and in doing so, Swedish girls also found the key to international success for many of the Swedish denim brands (there are others, like Nudie Jeans, who has taken a completely different route, but that’s another story), because what fashionable girls worldwide started looking for in the last decade was something much closer to glammed up streetstyle than haute couture. They found the skinny jeans, just as the Swedes had a decade earlier.

Daniel Björk - Fashion

April 11, 2011

Konrad Olsson

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I am actually more curious about people themselves than the clothes.

Victor Moreno

February 17, 2011