Loading

Tag archives for sfw

Taking fashion to the public

13 comments

Commuters in London getting a dose of fashion.

I know, this is supposed to be about Swedish fashion and here I am with a picture of how London Fashion Week shows highlights on the London underground… But seeing this made me think about the ongoing discussion in Sweden about whether it would be a good idea to gather all the Scandinavian fashion weeks in one place to able to compete with the international powerhouses (I don’t know whether this is a discussion in other Scandinavian countries).

From talking to fashion journalists from other countries than the Nordic ones, I know that many people fail to see any difference between Scandinavian and Swedish, and fair enough, there are many similarities between the countries. I’ve actually been arguing for having a Scandinavian fashion week in Copenhagen (which feels a bit blasphemous in this forum…). This has been based on the idea that Swedish independent designers need proper buyers and Copenhagen has a better infrastructure for that.

But at the same time a Swedish fashion week is important for the image of fashion within Sweden itself. It is in a way a sign that you are taking yourself seriously, that you believe fashion is worth media coverage, but – and this is where that starting picture comes in – I think that one thing that could be bettered is the interaction between the fashion community and the public.

Every time I’ve ever been to a seminar on fashion or anything similar, there has been a huge interest from the public. There is something about fashion that engages people, maybe because it is a part of everyone’s life, whether they like it or not. Maybe it’s just that fashion is a topical subject.

This aspect would get lost if Stockholm’s fashion week moved to Denmark and merged with CPH Vision, and I must admit that it would definitely be a loss. Next fashion week I’d love to be part of arranging something interesting along these lines.

Daniel Björk - Fashion

February 26, 2011

Swedish fashion abroad

5 comments

Ann-Sofie Back and her models at the end of the presentation of the autumn-winter collection 2011

When I started out in fashion Ann-Sofie Back was just a student at Central Saint Martins in London that the magazine I wrote for believed in so much that they put her on the cover of their final issue. Soon thereafter, her graduate collection was shot by Juergen Teller for Purple Magazine and Ann-Sofie Back was hailed as one of the ones to watch. This was in the early Noughties.

For a brief stint she showed in Paris but mainly she has remained in London, taking a break from showing once in a while. These days she seems to have found a way to structure her life and business that works – proper job at Cheap Monday; diffusion line BACK giving her a price point which works in Sweden; “proper” line Ann-Sofie Back Ateljé more focused.

You can tell this works just by looking at the clothes, which are more sophisticated, luxurious but also clearer in vision than I think they’ve been before.

I really thought it was a splendid collection she showed here in London on Sunday and while it was criticised by Tim Blanks at Style.com for being “unnecessarily severe”, he also said it was “positively esoteric” and compared her to Miuccia Prada.

Is it important for Swedish fashion to be seen at places like London Fashion Week? I sometimes think it would be good for Swedish brands to be subjected to the kind of competition and scrutiny you have on the international scene, but at the same time, the Swedish bubble also creates interesting stuff, like the menswear label Our Legacy which many think is the next big thing to come out of Sweden.

I know that I previously said that I believe the Swedish design identity needs to be broadened, but for a lot of brands there will naturally exist some kind of sensibility that is perhaps Scandinavian. Many small Swedish designers make their shoes in Argentina (because of an Argentinian woman living in Stockholm) and I’ve heard that the Swedish shoes for women are laughed at in the Argentinian factory and seen as frumpy-looking and ugly. This might make a lot of Swedish design uninteresting in latin countries, places with a warmer climate and more feminine design aesthetic.

At the same time, the woman of Swedish fashion is perhaps more on trend than ever before. The working woman look that evolved in the Seventies, and who has been brought back by designers like Phoebe Philo at Céline, Stella McCartney and Hannah MacGibbon at Chloé, fits very well with the Swedish mentality where women want to dress in a way that signals equality, independence, intelligence and natural beauty.

Acne is also a label which has recently started showing in London, in many ways marking a new era for the denim brand. The first real show at Kensington Palace last autumn was not so well received by fashion critics, in a way showing that the exoticism of Stockholm could work in your favour. It will be interesting to see how this added scrutiny changes Acne. In a way it is a question of identity that any company reaching this level faces: in what ways are you an international brand and in what ways are you still Swedish?

Daniel Björk - Fashion

February 23, 2011

Why Swedes have a problem with fashion

7 comments

Books about the essence of various nations' fashion.

I’ve just escaped the snowstorms and arctic weather of Sweden and instead reached a more spring-prone England, where I spend a lot of time working.

Living in another country has in some ways made me see Swedish fashion with new eyes. Some obsessions seem hard to understand, other brands come across as more relevant. It’s also easier to see the group-think that pervades Swedish fashion media at times.

I always suspect people of not liking fashion in Sweden, even when they say they do. There is a certain propensity to like only the artistic or political parts of fashion, while dismissing anything commercial. I think Swedes as a group have difficulty accepting the frivolity of it all, therefore often dressing fashion up as something else.

Things like these are often deep-rooted cultural patterns. I guess a nation that was poor more or less up until the second World War still has little patience with fashion. There’s a moral attitude mixed up with people’s attraction to beauty, and I think I can sense it whenever I write something critical of fashion – the response is always positive, in a way revealing a longing for some kind of put-down of what fashion stands for.

In many ways this has made me want to defend fashion even when it is at it’s most “meaningless”. Not that I think that fashion journalism shouldn’t be critical – on the contrary, fashion often deserves to be criticised and seen with an almost cynical outlook.

It’s just that I think that you can’t be a great critic if you don’t love fashion. You don’t have to love the raw commercialism of the fashion industry or the rigid beauty ideals. But if that’s your view of fashion you don’t really know what fashion is. Fashion can also be highly uncommercial and often questions and changes society’s beauty ideals. Furthermore, it is often the most commercially successful fashions that capture the zeitgeist and give an era a look and a style.

This would’ve been the last post from me, but since I’ve enjoyed writing and thinking about Swedish fashion so much I’ve decided to keep doing it. My hope is that now that Swedish fashion week is over I’ll be able to develop themes like the one in this post more thoroughly and perhaps link it to the success of Swedish fashion brands abroad. See you next week.

Daniel Björk - Fashion

February 15, 2011