• In the Weave of Creation: Four Designers on Fashion, Nature and Norrviken

    Written by Natalia Muntean

    On August 6th, Norrvikens trädgårdar in Båstad opened In the Weave of Creation, an exhibition where nature and fashion intertwine. Four of Sweden’s most boundary-pushing designers, Bea Szenfeld, Frida Jonsvens, Linnéa Samia Khalil and Martin Bergström, have each transformed the gardens into a living canvas. Their works, created in dialogue with the surroundings, invite visitors to reflect on fleetingness, sustainability and the interplay between the cultivated and the wild. Discover more about the artists’ inspirations, processes and the stories woven into their creations.

    Bea Szenfeld

    Natalia Muntean: You call paper “nature's material.” How did the gardens inspire your paper sculptures this time?
    Bea Szenfeld:     My work both blends into and contrasts with the natural surroundings. I consciously work with materials, shapes, and colours that either draw inspiration from nature or break away from it - to raise questions about our relationship with the environment. My artistry is not only about aesthetics but also about dialogue — between the artificial and the organic, the temporary and the enduring. I want the viewer to pause and reflect on what is natural, what we take for granted, and how human imprints alter the landscape over time. By placing the works in direct relation to the surroundings, new layers of meaning emerge that can only be experienced on site.

    NM: Your works look delicate, but last outdoors. How do you make paper withstand the garden setting?
    BS:     My sculptures can be taken outdoors, if absolutely necessary. However, it's not something I prefer or recommend. Some of my works can't even withstand wind, and definitely not rain.


    NM: You say you “listen to nature's voice.” Did any specific spot in Norrviken speak to you?
    BS:     Norrviken is a place where nature and human care meet in harmony. The gardens carry a history of vision and a longing for beauty, but also for order within chaos. That inspires me. I like Norrviken because it’s a place where every detail feels intentional, yet nature is still allowed to breathe freely. There is time here. Silence. And a kind of breathing space for both visitors and ideas. One place I often pause at is the mirror pond where the world is turned upside down. The surface is still, but beneath it, life moves. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of a salamander, quiet and almost primaeval, like a living fragment of something we’ve nearly forgotten we share the world with.

    NM: What should visitors notice about how your pieces interact with the natural surroundings?
    BS:     What happens when 'nature' becomes an excerpt from an archive, a glossy photograph, a word without a body. A field that has never carried a scent. Without nature present around us — in sound, in smell, in change — the direct experience is lost. We can read about trees, see pictures of clouds, listen to old recordings of birdsong, but we won’t feel them. Without contact, understanding dies. And without understanding, memory dies.

    Perhaps one day in the future, someone will hold up a plastic model of a flower and call it nature. Perhaps nature will become something mysterious, mythological, the way we now think of extinct species or ancient ruins. That is why we must preserve not just the physical landscape, but also our living relationship with it. So that the future will not only know what nature was, but still be able to experience it.


    Frida Jonsvens

    Natalia Muntean: Your designs reuse forgotten materials. What surprising things did you repurpose for this exhibition?
    Frida Jonsvens:     When the imagination is allowed to roam freely, there are no limits. Curtains have become flower petals, and crystal chandeliers have turned into pistils. For this particular exhibition, I’ve thoroughly searched second-hand shops all over Sweden and found eight vintage crystal chandeliers, which I carefully dismantled by hand, one by one. I then worked with a total of 64 old curtains, cutting them into thousands of flower petals and using them to create flowers.

    NM: The gardens blend wild and designed areas. How does your work reflect this mix?
    FJ:     My flower cloak represents the wild. Each petal is unique, handcrafted from repurposed curtains and crystal chandeliers. What was once loved, forgotten, or discarded is allowed to bloom freely once more. Beneath the cloak rests a shimmering crystal dress, inspired by the architecture of the Victoria House. Together, they form a poetic whole - Norrviken expressed through fabric, colour, and light. The piece is a tribute to nature, to the beauty we already have, and to the art of seeing value where others see waste.

    NM: You talk about “blooming beauty.” Which flowers inspired your designs?
    FJ:     All of them! I’ve truly been inspired by the entire garden’s colour and form.

    NM: How do your voluminous shapes connect to the garden's natural forms?
    FJ:     That’s exactly what I see in the garden as well. For example, Norrviken’s magnificent rhododendrons carry volume in an absolutely stunning and inspiring way.

     
    Linnéa Samia Khalil

    Natalia Muntean: You challenge traditional silhouettes. How did the gardens' natural shapes inspire your designs?
    Linnéa Samia Khalil:     I love it when something imperfect can still be beautiful and captivating. Just like nature, dynamic, organic, and irregular. Creating something where you're led forward by the process itself, shaping the lines as the creation unfolds, you can’t replicate it, and no curve is ever the same. That’s something I find incredibly fun and fascinating to work with.

    NM: Your clothes “tell stories.” What story do these garden pieces tell?
    LSK:     The piece I’m creating for Norrviken is all about the unpredictable. The twists you didn’t see coming. The meeting of softness and hardness. The organic.

    NM: How did creating work in this natural setting push your creative boundaries?
    LSK:     It’s been a challenge to create this piece precisely because there are no rules or frames to lean on. Planning or sketching didn’t work, since every curve and every part of the creation was shaped in the moment. And being limited to the materials I had set aside for this project has also been demanding. Early on, I decided I would only use white organza, donated by a company that would have otherwise thrown it away.

    NM: How can unconventional fashion help us see nature differently?
    LSK:     Allowing yourself to understand and appreciate the imperfect, the living, the unrestrained and boundless, is powerful, especially in a world and in fashion, where structure so often dominates. Let playfulness exist. See the beauty in the raw.



    Martin Bergström

    Natalia Muntean: Your patterns blend wild and cultivated elements. How did Norrviken's garden inspire this mix?
    Martin Bergström:     I was inspired by the vision of the Norrviken garden founder Carl Rudolf Zacharias Abelin’s choices of flora. I like the idea of a dandelion growing next to an orchid, wild and refined side by side.

    NM: The jacquard weave captures the garden's essence. What details did you include in the pattern?
    MB:     The pattern features a meeting between cultivated and wild plants — edible versus poisonous.
    I wanted to reflect the garden’s layered character, where beauty often hides complexity. These contrasts capture the essence of Norrviken: controlled yet untamed, delicate yet powerful.

    NM: You're inspired by myths and nature's mysteries. Did any specific legends influence these works?
    MB:     Not a specific legend, but I was deeply inspired by the symbolism of soil — this rich, brown, almost magical material. It holds both death and birth at once, carrying the cycles of nature within it. I find that incredibly powerful. Soil may seem simple, but to me, it represents transformation, mystery, and life itself. I love working with that idea.

    NM: How do your textiles help us see the garden's history in new ways?
    MB:     Textiles have a unique way of holding memory — through material, texture, and time. I try to reflect the layered history of the garden itself. Norrviken isn’t just a beautiful space; it’s a place shaped by vision, care, and change over generations. My textiles become a kind of soft storytelling, inviting visitors to not only see the garden’s past, but to feel it, reinterpret it, and connect with it in a new, tactile way.

    Photographer Thomas Klementsson

  • IAMISIGO Wins the Zalando Visionary Award 2025 at Copenhagen Fashion Week

    Written by Jahwanna Berglund by Janae McIntosh

    At this year’s Copenhagen Fashion Week, the Zalando Visionary Award, a prize that champions innovation, sustainability, and cultural dialogue was awarded to IAMISIGO, the groundbreaking fashion label founded by Bubu Ogisi. More than just recognition, the award provides financial support, mentorship, and access to an international network, helping to amplify voices that are reshaping the future of fashion.
    For Ogisi, this win is a reminder that the world is finally listening. IAMISIGO’s work is rooted in ancestral knowledge, textile innovation, and cultural continuity threads that weave together tradition and experimentation, the spiritual and the technological. Her collections are not merely garments; they are living archives. Woven into every piece are the gestures of women weavers, the memory of dyeing rituals whispered through generations, and philosophies embedded in acts often overlooked as “domestic.”
    Born in Nigeria and now working across the African continent, Ogisi has become a voice of resistance and reclamation. By keeping creation close to home, she insists on telling stories on her own terms and centering “forgotten historical narratives” in an industry that too often overlooks them. IAMISIGO’s practice refuses to treat heritage as static or craft as quaint; instead, they are seen as living technologies, deeply intellectual systems of knowledge, survival, and imagination.

    Jahwanna: What has winning the Zalando Visionary Award revealed to you? Not about your brand, but about  how the world sees your brand?
    It revealed that the world is finally tuning into frequencies we've always been emitting—frequencies rooted in  ancestral knowledge, material intelligence, and cultural continuity. The recognition was proof that people are  beginning to see beyond aesthetics and into intention.


    Awards often offer visibility, but what kinds of deeper exchange do you hope to build through  Zalando’s support, be it the mentorship, or the network behind the prize?
    I’m interested in systems—how this platform can facilitate cross-cultural research, ethical production pathways,  and long-term support for material economies across the continent. I hope to exchange not just knowledge, but  frameworks for sustainable sovereignty.

    Why is it important for you to keep creation close to home, and to centre these ‘forgotten historical  narratives’ in a global fashion system that often overlooks them?
    Keeping creation close to home allows us to unearth them on our terms, through our hands. It’s an act of  resistance, but also of reclamation. We’re not inserting ourselves into fashion’s history—we’re reminding it of its  roots.


    IAMISIGO often merges ancient techniques with future-forward materials, so, if your SS26  collection had to be understood as a kind of time travel, where exactly is it taking us?
    It takes us to the in-between: the liminal space where ancestors meet algorithms, where spirit tech and  biotechnology are not separate but symbiotic. 


    How do you know when something is finished, when your work celebrates anti-finishing? What  makes a piece ‘complete’ in your world?
    A piece is never really done—it’s paused. It lives, breathes, unravels, and mutates. I consider something  ‘complete’ when it begins to communicate back to me—when it starts carrying its own energy into the world.  When I’m designing the piece is really only ready when it leaves my hands and gets onto the runway. 

    Much of your work deals with the spiritual body, so, when designing for the runway, how do you  stage something that’s not meant to be seen, but felt?
    Nothing is staged. Everything exists just as it has to in this world. It is a question of looking a bit closer. On the  continent, things exist now as they were centuries ago. We just have big concrete cities now to mask all of that.  But spirituality is still deeply embedded in the land. I think when I visit these spaces and make them, I’m just  stirring the pot. What you see in the show is the fumes from all of this spirituality cooking. 


    Is there a material you’ve encountered recently that frightened or overwhelmed you, creatively,  spiritually, or otherwise? 

    Yes—tempered glass. So precise, yet fragile. Its false sense of strength mirrored something in me. It forced me to reflect on the illusion of control in creation. It also made me curious about the invisible tensions materials hold.

    There’s a recurring theme in your work around portals — to ancestry, to alternative futures. What’s the last personal or creative portal you walked through that changed you? 
    Abidjan. I fell in love with the city when I went there to work on the collection in May. 

    Your research spans cities, villages, spirit realms. Where does knowledge travel fastest, and  where does it get lost? 
    It travels fastest through the body. Movement, dance, repetition—those are archives. But knowledge gets lost in  translation—when we try to fit fluid systems into rigid structures. Oral traditions don't fit neatly into Dropbox  folders.

    What’s the biggest misconception you think the fashion industry still holds about “heritage” or  “craft”?
    That heritage is static and craft is quaint. Both are living technologies. Craft is not just skill—it’s cosmology.  Heritage isn’t backwards-looking—it’s the past, the present and the future. It is strategic memory and the industry  often commodifies both without understanding the systems they emerge from.

    IAMISIGO often functions as a living archive, and so, are there any stories, voices, or techniques  you feel responsible for protecting right now?
    Yes, there are—too many to mention, and I’m not sure I can fully articulate a complete response right now,  because the responsibility is a profound one. But I carry with me the stories of women weavers whose hands  remember more than books ever could. For example, the oral dyeing rituals passed down in hushed tones. The  philosophies embedded in folding, wrapping, and stitching—acts often dismissed as domestic, but deeply  intellectual. I feel responsible for preserving these not just through documentation, but through activation—by  centering them in contemporary contexts, and ensuring they are not just seen, but valued, protected, and paid.

    If IAMISIGO were to evolve into something that isn’t a fashion label, what form would it take next?
    A collective. A tribe. A space where creativity is fluid and purposefully uncontained. IAMISIGO would evolve into  a roaming academy, a cultural sanctuary, a research institute that merges material science with ritual practice and  spiritual inquiry. It’s always been more than fashion—it’s a living system of re-memory and re-imagination.

    You once said your work is about removing the construct of borders. What new border are you  currently trying to dissolve, and why?
    The border between the spiritual and the technological. They are not opposites. I’m interested in coding as  ceremony, in data as an ancestor. Dissolving that binary could unlock an entirely new way of designing—and of  being.
     

  • photo courtesy of HEIGS

    HEIGS: The Art of Understated Luxury

    Written by Ulrika Lindqvist

    HEIGS was founded by Johanna van der Drift, with Daan van Luijn joining soon after as co-founder. Together, they bring a shared vision: to create timeless pieces with real meaning and purpose. Rooted in Swiss precision and shaped by a deep reverence for craftsmanship, their bags speak in subtleties, unbranded, intimate, and designed to grow with time. In this conversation, the duo reflects on heritage, restraint, and redefining what true luxury can be.

    Ulrika Lindqvist: How long have you been working in accessory design, and what originally inspired you to pursue this career?

    Johanna van der Drift : I’ve always been a designer at heart — whether it was hotel interiors, custom tableware, or television production. The idea for a bag came to me on a drive between Switzerland and France — a very specific stretch of road. I was chasing a form I hadn’t yet seen: something elegant, unbranded, deeply personal. Not long after, I met Eloise in Paris, a master leather artisan trained at Hermès and Louis Vuitton. Our connection was instant, and HEIGS started to take shape. It was less a career switch, more a continuation of everything I’d been building toward.

    UL: What motivated you to start HEIGS?

    JvdD: We wanted to create something lasting — a counterpoint to the speed and spectacle of fashion today. HEIGS is our answer to what we felt was missing: true luxury that doesn’t rely on noise, but on quality, intimacy, and care. Every part of HEIGS — from the untreated leather to the storytelling linings — is designed to grow with you. We believed there was a customer who wanted more meaning, less branding. And we were right.

    UL: Can you share the story behind the name “HEIGS”?

    JvdD: HEIGS stands for Heidi Goes Safari — a playful reimagining of the classic character Heidi. To us, Heidi isn’t a girl in the Alps. They’re a non-binary adventurer, rooted in nature but always exploring. It reflects our own story: I’m Swiss, Daan is Dutch; we live between cities and mountains, tradition and experimentation. HEIGS is about grounding and movement — heritage with curiosity.

    UL: In your opinion, what are the most important features a bag should have?

    Daan van Luijn: Quality. That might sound obvious, but it’s not always a given. A lot of luxury pricing doesn’t reflect the labor or craft behind the piece. Ours does. Each HEIGS bag takes two full weeks to make — by a single artisan. Over 150 steps, most of them by hand. That’s where the value sits. Not in trends. Not in logos. But in the time, care, and technique it takes to make something that actually lasts.

    UL: Switzerland has long been known for its quality leather goods. Was entering this market intimidating?

    JvdD: It wasn’t intimidating — it felt like home. I lived in Switzerland for over 20 years, and that culture of clarity, discipline, and craftsmanship is in my bones.
    Entering that space wasn’t about competing, it was about contributing something thoughtful to it — something rooted in the same values but expressed in a new
    way.

    UL: How do you decide which materials to work with for your collections?

    JvdD: I work from emotion. I search brocantes and flea markets across France and Switzerland, always looking for materials that carry story. We’ve used antique textiles, linings from ballet shoe ateliers in Paris, even pine and wildflowers.

    UL: Do you have a favorite piece from your collection? What makes it special to you?

    DvL: Probably the Beurre bag. It’s logo-free, white, undyed, uncoated. There’s something radical about how understated it is. No branding, just form. It represents the next chapter for us: going even deeper into restraint and refinement.

    UL: What would you say are the three core values that define HEIGS?

    JvdD & DvL: 

    Craftsmanship, Meaning over marketing, Intimacy over spectacle

    How would you describe the typical Heigs customer?

    JvdD & DvL: They notice quality, texture, stitching and the way a bag ages. They value quiet confidence. Many of them work in creative fields or care about design, but they’re not trying to show off.

    UL: If you could design for anyone, who would be your dream client?

    DvL: Lily-Rose Depp. There’s something so je ne sais quoi about her—a kind of effortless cool that feels inherited, maybe from her mother, Vanessa Paradis, who I’d also love to design for. They both have this rare, confident elegance.”

    JvdD: Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy. I’ve always pictured her with the bag in her hand—even from the very beginning, four years ago. To me, she’s the ultimate in
    understated sophistication: original, elegant, and timeless.

    UL: Could you share a memorable moment from your journey with HEIGS so far?

    DvL: For me, it was definitely the shoot in the Swiss Alps. That experience felt really foundational. The way the whole team came together—there was this shared energy, this collective vision—and what we created there felt so inherently ‘Heigs’. It was one of those moments where everything just clicked.

    JvdD: I almost want to say the same, but for me, that place in the Alps is more than just a backdrop—it’s my homeland. That’s where my journey truly began. So
    rather than a moment, it feels like an era. But if I had to choose one moment, it would be the day I held the first ‘En Suisse’ bag in my hands, after a year of working closely on the master with my leather maker. I’ll never forget it. It was exactly as it was meant to be.

    UL: What are your plans and vision for the future of Heigs?

    DvL: We’re not scaling in the traditional sense, but instead are working on smaller collaborations with brands and artists like Brigitte Tanaka and BillyNou, we’re focusing on pop-ups in Paris and will perhaps add a product category into the mix at some point. Right now our mission is to familiarise the world with our ethos and core collection.

    photography Yuma Greco
    photography Yuma Greco 

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