• photography by SABINA OLSON
    clothing by FO PHAN
    make up & hair ANGELIQUE CARLSSON
    stylist MARTINA AXTELIUS
    model KLARA JÄMTERUD /MP Stockholm

    Designing Emotional Sustainability

    Written by Ksenia Rundin

    This is our last interview in the designer-student series and we meet a young, curious and diligent student of Beckmans College of Design Fo Phan, who dares to question both himself and contemporary times. His design discovers an emotional string in the textile and connects it with the flow of the created forms, granting a wearer an outstanding luxury of the craftsmanship and a feeling of an inner strength. He skilfully plays with aesthetic disruptions, unintentionally creating an own sensuous bricolage of Western culture and Eastern philosophy.

    Tell me about your recent work. What theme does it have?
    Recently I worked with emotional interpretation of the word “waste” in my design through questioning my close relationships within the LGBT-community. It is a way for me to investigate my own behaviour and my own fears and insecurities. I have bared my feelings creating a monologue by means of my design, where I have manipulated the textile. Looking the denim threads being released (ripped up) in an act of self-disruption, baring its soul and reviving by creating motions, reminds me of human feelings.
    Furthermore, it is also a way of pondering the role of social media in our choice of clothes. We go to the gym and work out in order to be able to fit the tight silhouettes we are forced upon by the influence of social media. Well, it is more or less a way of searching for freedom.

    Who are you designing for?
    Changes within the fashion system and availability have raised many thoughts about the time I am living in. I question the existed ideals and want to shape garments that give spiritual strength to a person wearing those.

    Do you think that the designer as such has any obligations towards the customer?
    The obligation is to be including using your design. There are a lot of changes happening in fashion right now. Vetements’ designer Demna Gvasalia is one of the prominent examples, where he tries to change the fashion system. I would say it is about questioning the consumer’s quantitative choice as much as it is also a new way for fashion to make money.

    Who inspires you in fashion design?
    One of my references is Martin Margiela and his way of deconstructing the beauty.

    Do you think that haute couture and fast fashion can learn something from each other?
    It is such a big contrast between those two. However, I think that the accentuation should be on the craftsmanship for both. Fast fashion could win a lot there.

    What is your strength concerning design and how does it help you in your creating process?
    My strength is my courage to experiment with forms and to dare to play with textile to achieve the result and the form I have in mind. Thus, it is about a challenge.

    Your fashion city?
    It is Seoul with its statement looks people wearing, its mix of culture and technology. In other words, all its multifunctionality the city invites you to become a part of.

    Your favourite designer?
    It is South Korean designer Juun J, who is a master of classic tailoring but applying his skills in a very modern way by playing with forms and in a revolutionary way restructuring habitual silhouettes. In other words, he dares.

    Do you integrate any thought of sustainability into your design? If so, how do you do it?
    I think sustainability should start on the personal level, by deciding how you as a designer can work in a sustainable way and contribute to the future of sustainable fashion. For me it starts with an emotional sustainability in a garment, where I give the textile new life that through its motion connects to the global thought of sustainability. In the first place, it is not about striving for to become sustainable but about making your mind sustainable.

    If you started your own brand today, what three key qualities would it have?
    It is difficult for me to answer because I have not thought that far. Considering that I am still a student I would rather like to work for some brand in order to learn more about the field, what would also help me as a designer. Nevertheless, it would be something edgy and multifunctional.

    Does Fashion Week (FW) serve its purpose? Would you like to change the concept?
    FW as such is good to have but the question is what purpose the latter should serve. I think it is about the time to question what fashion really is and FW could take the lead in the issue.

    Tell me about identity and authenticity in your design.
    My design narrates about how the world I am existing in has infringed my integrity. My starting point is the issues I deal with both within the LGBT-community and outside the latter. These are issues concerning peoples’ integrity. The identity of my design is about to justify different images around that field. In a certain way, the world has permeated into our human integrity, what I can clearly see in the works of today’s fashion designers. They have apparently been affected by the consumers.

  • photography by TOBIAS BJÖRKGREN
    stylist CHANTIMA EDNER
    make up SOFIA LEWANDROWSKI
    hair SOFIA GEIDEBY
    models SARAH LOCKHART / Le management & AMANDA EYOMA / MP Stockholm
    all clothing by MALIN WESTMAN

    Designing is About Creativity, Method and Systematic Decision-making

    Written by Ksenia Rundin

    Malin Westman is a last-year student at the Swedish School of Textiles in Borås, who sees her future in the fashion industry and confidently relies on her method, which gives a clear structure to her creative process. We met in Stockholm one Friday in February and talked about fashion and design as they do it in Borås. Malin has in her own way shown me the backstage of fashion, wrapped in a miracle of artistic creativity and covered with anguish of systematic decision-making. You merely devote yourself to it in order to inspire others. According to stylist Chantima Edner, Malin’s collection “Proportions” with its oversized silhouettes leaves the female forms outside by putting those in the beholder’s eyes. Placed into a unique context created by stylist Chantima Edner with her team and eternalised by photographer Tobias Björkgren, Malin’s garments obtain a new life but keep the playful humour of their creator. 

    Why did you decide to become a designer?
    I studied art and media for some time. I always did something creative even before that. Later, after have attended a sewing class, I realized that as a designer you can work with everything, both the form and colour and combine those together with personality and people. Thus, it is a perfect combination of everything.

    Have you studied any special form of art?
    I studied painting, I painted and did drawings my whole life. However, it is difficult to be an artist. As a designer you have more opportunities and you are still an artist in a certain way using these skills.

    Do you consider yourself to be a designer or an artist?
    It is difficult to say. I do a lot of artistic work at school, probably more than at any other designer schools. We also experiment a lot.

    What made you choose The Swedish School of Textiles in Borås?
    I have chosen Borås because it is a very big school with huge studios (workshops) with knitting and weaving machines and large spaces, what you really need in your learning process. When I studied some evening courses at Beckmans College of Design I discovered how small their spaces were in comparison with Borås.  Furthermore, the designer education is rather intensive and therefore it is a big advantage to live in such a small city like Borås, where nothing steals your attention like it could be in Stockholm for example. In other words, you are free from any outer stress and temptations. I spend long days at school and we have many deadlines to keep up with.

    How is it to live in Borås as a designer? Are there a lot of events happening?
    As I said, almost nothing really happens there. You simply go to school and do your work, by devoting yourself to it.

    Is there any marketing integrated into your studies?
    No, it is concentrated on the creative process without any commercial elements.

    What do you communicate with your design?
    I always have an element of questioning in what I am doing. Then we are also working a lot with establishing a method in our work. Now I am working on my graduate collection, where I problematize with gender issues and the rest is a secret that far. I enjoy to identify a problem as a basis and build my work methodologically around that and this is something I always do in my collections. One of my previous collections was aimed to question the body and how we create clothes by balancing the proportions of the latter, because clothes are usually made by using a mannequin with generally established proportions. Thus, all the clothes become more or less proportional in the same way.

    Do you have a sustainability thought integrated in your education?
    The school have sustainability as one of the main directions and we have courses covering the topic. Recently, I did my internship and a part of that was to observe and write a report on how the company I was at worked with sustainability and to suggest any changes if needed.

    Do you think fashion has a solution to the consumption hysteria we are living in today?
    I think that young designers, those who graduate now, have a tendency to a great extent question the fashion industry as it looks today in a rather humorous way. I do not think that those big clothing chains will move the change forward but those young designers with their alternative approach have good premises to succeed. They are the ones who dare to act, to stand out and question the industry.

    What inspires you in your design? What do your refer to?
    My inspiration is to identify a problem and criticize it in a humorous way, without having any purpose to perform any bigger change. It is about illustrating the problem and thereby explaining it in an apprehensible way, what actually makes the message come through. I get inspired by new designers on Instagram and Palomo Spain, who is very inspiring, amusing and free at the same time, is my biggest inspiration source right now.

    Have you done any collaborations with any design or fashion brands?
    Recently, I participated in the exhibition “Ten Textile Talents” at Svenskt Tenn with my own sample of textile printing as a contemporary interpretation of design. I am quite broad in my interests, I like to paint and I like to do many other things. Thus, I sent a sample of my printing and they chose me among other candidates.

    Have you decided yet what direction to choose, whether it is a textile design or anything else?
    My main direction is a fashion designer but you can also work as a print designer for a fashion brand. This is those two directions I like right now and consider as alternatives but am not sure what the final choice will be like. If I become a print designer, I would rather work for the fashion industry than with furnishing textiles.

    So, this is you graduate collection you are working on. Will you have any runway show for that?
    Yes, this is my third and last year in Borås. The graduates show takes place at the school in June, sometime in August in Stockholm and finally in London in connection with London Fashion Week in September. The precondition is to complete the collection and to be approved for the last show. It is a long process with qualitative and quantitative stages, where your creativity is continuously questioned and you have to live up to certain expectations. It is extremely stressful process to go through.

    How does digitalisation affect your design?
    I think we will get more and more machines. Nevertheless, there has to be an idea to everything to be created. Designer as a profession is very much about choices, you have to make choices and decisions all the time. I do not think that the designer will be completely replaced soon, probably in a long-term future.

    What is your dream material to work with?
    I have worked so much with different materials that now I feel I would like to work with one material in different ways, such as knitting and weaving. I work more with garments and with questioning those, therefore to work with a material as such would be inspiring for me.

    Do you feel that fashion are taking more and more of the cultural space now. What are the reasons behind according to your opinion?
    I completely agree and I think it depends on the attitude towards fashion which is changing now. People start seeing the cultural and creative potential in fashion and also its communicative quality.

    How do you build up your designer identity, your self-confidence as a designer?
    It is difficult to say how as I think it is a long-lasting process which occurs naturally. With each new decision, you move a step forward and after sometime you start realizing what you really like and then you can rely on it. It is about to find a suitable method for your creativity that makes you confident.

  • photography by LINDA ANDERSSON

    stylist CHANTIMA EDNER

    
make up ANNA ENGVALL

    
hair SOFIA GEIDEBY 
    models BJÖRN & ELISE / Le Management


    all clothing by JANNICA HAGFORS,

    sunglasses handmade by ERIC OHLSSON

    wooden shoes by KAORI AGEMATSU
    Special thanks to PLAY STUDIO STHLM

    Designing Artistic Sustainability of “Unbelonging”

    Written by Ksenia Rundin

    Snowy afternoon I meet Jannica Hagfors at Sven-Harry’s art museum in Stockholm to start Odalisque Magazine’s interview series about designer students, who want to share their thoughts on fashion, art, design, sustainability and future.

    Being the second-year student, Jannica Hagfors has already participated in a number of designer projects, which have bared her creative spirit. In 2017 she, in cooperation with StureOptikern, had an opportunity to test her skills as a sunglasses designer. The project lasted for three months and Jannica made illustrations for a couple of sunglasses prototypes, what turned into a hybrid between Italian futurism of the 1970’s and industriality of Bauhaus. Her knitwear collection “Unbelonging” looks very modern and cosmic, reminding of Iris van Herpen’s forward-thinking design and sending my thoughts to Vangelis’ “Memories of Green” with its futuristic film noir envisions.

    Is there a sustainability thought integrated into your education?
    Definitely, already from the mere beginning we have a course in sustainability and different lectures from external actors, such as companies and organisations. Our latest material project - a debut collection - with the main theme called “Spill” resulted in the collection called “Unbelonging”, where I question spill, that arises when something falls outside its context. It is like a water being spilled outside the glass and it does not really belong to the content of the glass anymore. Thus, it is about the feeling of spill, of not really belonging, of no longer having a purpose. Out of that context I chose my material, transparent oilcloth, which has lost its function. I cut the cloth into stripes and then dyed those with textile colour. The colour in the context is not just a colour but it has its own language. Afterwards, I knitted my garments. It is also my way to create awareness about our usage of plastic. In order to become sustainable, we need to change our fundamental values. It should be exciting for humans to become sustainable, what can partly be solved by aesthetics, which needs to be improved. Nevertheless, all the materials are a burden for the environment and it is crucially important to understand.

    You have mentioned that the colour is important in  your collection. Why?
    I have an artistic background, where I used to paint a lot. However, I decided to choose fashion due to its transformation potential, which I consider to be bigger than in art. Nevertheless, my artistic skills help me in my current fashion activity.

    What is fashion for you?
    For me it is a social phenomenon that arises owing to communication between humans and changes together with the humans. I am very fond of the transformation process in fashion and how through that people can influence each other. Fashion is a silent language, where many people do the same thing but in own way.

    Who is a fashion designer? Do you consider yourself being an artist or a designer?
    I still see a bit of artist in myself as I am influenced by my past; it is like with handwriting - you write the way you once been taught. However, I call myself a creator, where I create a product that, after the creation process is over, acquires its own life with own artistic identity.

    Do  you think fashion is a political issue?
    It is hard to say, because fashion includes many aspects. I think fashion should be independent. It can definitely become a tool for expressing your political opinion. However, I consider fashion to be a democratic process.

    What do you think about cool hunting in fashion? Do you use it in your designing process?
    Designing is a kind of living process, where we, students, influence each other through our creativity. We do not look for or follow trends, as we try to build up our own designer identity in the first place. Of course, I cannot say that we are not affected by what is around us. All these influences become more or less integrated in our creative process where our identity is a guiding star.

    What is a dream material for you to work with?
    I create my material myself through cutting, dyeing and knitting processes. Then I am able to see a new potential in it, like an artist sees it on a canvas. I adore beautiful falls and gracious movements. When I had created my dresses for “Unbelonging” and put one of those on a model and ask her to walk around, I could hear a rustle the dress emitted. The sound as such constitutes own newness.

    Do you think it is important for brands to keep an element of their national identity in our age of globalisation?
    I think it is up to every brand to decide how they want to market themselves. Cultural heritage is important but does not have to be used by all the brands. I am more into innovation and therefore do not think about that.

    How do you think experience economy will affect future design?
    We are moving towards sustainable fashion today and people want more and more make a conscious choice in tranquillity instead of entering a crowded store in stress. There is the room for experience, what will more and more prevail in future, I think.

    How do you think the digitalisation will affect the designer role in future?
    Everybody would be able to turn into designer with own aesthetics using 3D printing and other modern technologies. Nevertheless, I think that craftsmanship, such as pattern making, will still be important as basics.

    You have certainly worked with stylists. Could you please describe how these two roles coexist and who really dominates?
    Stylist is an extension of the designer role, as he/she takes over at the stage where the other one has completed the work. Designer is too close to his/her creation and thus, he/she might become a slightly speed-blinded in the question of objectiveness. In such a case, the stylist brings the objectiveness back.

    What are you working on now?
    Now I am working with an aspect of multifunctionality in a garment, where an urgency of sustainability and versatility of aesthetic meet in a certain context.

    Could you please describe your cooperation with photographer Linda Andersson?
    Our theme is ocean and sustainability, where the purpose is to raise awareness of our overconsumption of plastic, using the material as such in the living context. By putting plastic stripes into the model’s mouth and around her, we aim by means of visual aesthetic to illustrate that we are surrounded of plastic, literally everywhere. Thus, the focus is on the material as such and its overconsumption.

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