HEIKKI SALONEN
ONE OF FINLAND’S BRIGHTEST FASHION STARS, THIS ROYAL COLLEGE OF ART GRADUATE WON A COMPETITION JUDGED BY THE DESIGNER ERDEM. THIS RECOGNITION, TOGETHER WITH SUPPORT FROM FASHION EAST AND NEWGEN, CATAPULTED HIM ONTO THE INTERNATIONAL FASHION STAGE ... WHICH, IN TURN, OPENED THE DOOR TO THE HEAD DESIGN POSITION AT DIESEL.
Where once it was furniture, telephones, and pop music, think Ikea, Nokia, and Abba, Scandinavian influence has proliferated. Its politics, interior design, architecture, cuisine, film, Angry Birds and even an artwork –Edvard Munch’s The Scream – have been dominating global culture of late. And now it’s fashion’s turn. In reaction to a decade of luxury’s overly lustrous growth Scandinavian fashion is having its moment. But being Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Finland, it’s minimalistic – bereft of the kings, queens, knaves, klieg lights and Karl Lagerfelds of high fashion – forged instead by a fashion collective whose authenticity, authorship, calm lifestyle assurance, broad social conscience and Pinterest chic has made them the industry’s new covetables. From well-established brands like Acne, COS, Peter Jensen, Bruuns Bazaar, Wood Wood and Marimekko to upcomers like Louise Sigvardt, Stine Riis and Ann-Sofie Back, the simplistic, functional and locally rather than mass-produced hits keep coming, as econic as they are iconic, as anti-glam as they are stylish. “We share the same vision regarding how to dress,” says Swedish designer Carin Wester. “Nothing luxurious or snazzy; solid and compact collections, with wearable garments, at a price range that makes them affordable designed pieces.
So influential has their brand become, Nordic designers put on their own shows and exhibition at Somerset House in London as part of London Fashion Week last month, wherein stylist and fashion writer Dorothea Gundtoft promoted Fashion Scandinavia, (Thames & Hudson) a title profiling more than 50 of the region’s most prominent designers.
The talk of luxury is ironic. While Nordic designers make fashion feel more daily necessity than glamorous dream, they have a cachet their logo-driven competitors lost long ago: the quality of being one-off, purveyors of products that are hard if not impossible to source, which, in turn, inspires aficionado foraging. In fact, Scandinavia’s fashion designers share one attribute with the region’s biggest brand of all, Lego, Despite the lure of cheap global labour, 90% of all Lego products [more than 4 billion pieces per year] are still manufactured in Denmark. That, coupled with the sustainable and stylish rise of Scandinavian fashion, is local luxury on a grand scale.
So influential has their brand become, Nordic designers put on their own shows and exhibition at Somerset House in London as part of London Fashion Week last month, wherein stylist and fashion writer Dorothea Gundtoft promoted Fashion Scandinavia, (Thames & Hudson) a title profiling more than 50 of the region’s most prominent designers.
The talk of luxury is ironic. While Nordic designers make fashion feel more daily necessity than glamorous dream, they have a cachet their logo-driven competitors lost long ago: the quality of being one-off, purveyors of products that are hard if not impossible to source, which, in turn, inspires aficionado foraging. In fact, Scandinavia’s fashion designers share one attribute with the region’s biggest brand of all, Lego, Despite the lure of cheap global labour, 90% of all Lego products [more than 4 billion pieces per year] are still manufactured in Denmark. That, coupled with the sustainable and stylish rise of Scandinavian fashion, is local luxury on a grand scale.
Images: Fashion Scandinavia, published by Thames & Hudson
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