In the same year, she found herself working as a designer of women’s wear and accessories for Bruuns Bazaar. Mainstream pioneers of a Scandinavian fashion look defined by simplicity, minimalism and accessibility, Bruuns Bazaar was the first Danish brand to enter the official calendar in Paris. But tonight the company’s rising star has come back to her roots.
Sigvardt gained her fashion credentials from the Kolding School of Design, as did Bruuns Bazaar chief designer Rebekka Bay, who head-hunted the young graduate even before her „designer’s nest“ victory. And in a glorious late-Renaissance hall in central Copenhagen, this year’s graduating students from Sigvardt’s alma mater have put together their annual runway show, confidently titled: Future of Fashion.
The most impressive collection in the Future of Fashion show is by Mathilde Maalouf. Elegant, witty and warmly sophisticated, her work takes its bearings from Danish furniture and interior designer Finn Juhl, creator of the famous Pelican chair. Juhl, one of the fathers of Danish modern design, is also an important figure in Louise Sigvardt’s design universe.
As Danish fashion is relatively new to the international fashion world – it became visible in the 1970s but prominent only from the 1990s onwards – it’s not uncommon for young Danish fashion designers to worship heroes from the world of Danish interior and furniture design such as Juhl, Arne Jacobsen (the Egg and Swan chairs), Hans Wegner (the Wishbone chair), Verner Panton (the Cone and Panton chair) and Borge Mogensen (the Spanish and Hunting chairs). Despite the Kolding design school’s provincial setting – in a small seaport several hours from Copenhagen – Sigvardt credits it with a vibrant international outlook thanks in part to its strong reputation in the European design scene and its ability to reel in teachers from across the continent. And it’s not just the Jutland climate she found bracing.
„I went to Kolding because I didn’t want a lot of distractions,“ she tells me. „I wanted to focus on my work, and not to be tempted by too many parties, though I did travel a lot while I was there, and fell in love with Japan. But, to be honest, after three years it was enough.“
Though launched on a mainstream career at Bruuns, she maintains her own path. „I would love to do more with my own style, which is very graphic and minimalistic with really strong lines.“
Kolding’s international outlook impressed itself firmly on her work, which is threaded with a subtle gesture of homage to the postwar Japanese adaptation of denim, which is itself a love letter to early 60s American style. In Sigvardt’s hands, though, denim becomes a contemporary – almost futuristic – fabric. „I’m really in love with denim and wanted to do something different with the material, to show its amazing breadth and integrate it with other materials,“ she explains. „I wanted to treat it as you treat wool or cashmere and didn’t want to just do denim with, say, whiskers on it.“
Internationalism is a key theme in the broader world of Danish fashion, and feted Danish designers such as Peter Jensen and Malene Birger both work out of London. The young Danish designer Stine Riis, for her part, was educated at the London College of Fashion. Winner of last year’s H&M Design Award, she adopts a boldly internationalist outlook: her winning collection, titled Decadence and Decay, was inspired by American minimalists Robert Morris and Donald Judd.
The internet has quickened and strengthened these international synapses. When David Beckham was recently photographed wearing new Copenhagen-based brand Soulland’s Babar „the Elephant“ sweatshirt around his waist, the small outfit run from a studio in hip Vesterbro could barely keep up with global demand.
Also at the Kolding design school runway show tonight is Henrik Nielsen, head of business development at the Danish Fashion Institute. While most of the designs on show are by and for women, he sees Danish men’s fashion as the sphere where „things are happening“.
„Brands like Norse Projects, Wood Wood and Soulland are getting a lot of attention,“ Nielsen observes. „All three brands have been very good at using collaborations as a means to build a business. Wood Wood has collaborated with Eastpak and Adidas, Norse Projects has created a parka raincoat with Elka and gloves with Swedish brand Hestra, while Soulland with bag, belt and glove specialists Adax, and the new, very successful Babar collection.
„Soulland, Norse Projects and Wood Wood have all handpicked brands that have experience and tradition, and added their modern touch or special signature style. Their style is all based on street wear originally. By combining this with a more refined style they’ve created something new with an appeal for a lot of men outside Denmark as well. „These men’s brands have actually managed to get into super-sought-after retail spaces like Colette and Opening Ceremony, something no female Danish brand has achieved to date. Right around the world, the hottest style of menswear is linked to street style, and Danish menswear is tapping right into this.“
The burgeoning reputation of Danish menswear in the bullish menswear market is something that Stine Riis, a contemporary of Louise Sigvardt, is cleverly sourcing with a women’s collection inspired by the principles of male design and pitched at the „modern woman“. It’s not just that Riis combines traditional menswear tailoring with silk and leather to create a new take on womenswear; she also incorporates menswear details such as pockets, and male standards such as jackets, coats and trousers. In doing so, she imagines the modern women – who in her words „stands tall and elegantly“ – in a way the modern woman would hope to be imagined.
„I wanted to make a collection that was for the wearer and not about me as a designer,“ she explained after her H&M Design Award. „I combined shapes inspired by tailoring with materials and colours inspired by eroding materials such as rust on metal. The result is a sophisticated collection for the modern woman. It was important to me that the collection would last more than one season. Today the consumption of fashion is extremely fast and I like to wear my garments for years till they fall apart and it’s almost like they’ve become my friends because they hold so many memories.“
Up-and-coming Danish designers such as Riis and Sigvardt speak a similar language when describing their work, and its vocabulary is as much an idea about Scandinavian life as it is about Scandinavian style. Mie Nielsen, managing director of Danish design agency Femmes Regionales, puts it nicely when she says: „The Nordic alternative is not so much a singular style as a way of dressing. Danish fashion seems to be inspired by the foundations of our society, and the way it translates into fashion is that clothes are designed to be easy to wear. In a good Danish outfit, you can work, bike and party in the same thing. Affordability is important, too. We’re democratic in style and price.“
Sigvardt adds a gloss to this. While she celebrates the democratic ethos of Danish design, emphasising that street wear the world over is dictating terms to the big fashion houses, she also observes the trend towards a wardrobe of basics mixed with „one piece – one pair of shoes, one bag, one jacket“ that you can’t really afford.
As the Future of Fashion event is wrapping up and drinks are being served, she offers her own crystal ball view of fashion’s trajectory over the next decade. „The middle band is dropping out of the market,“ she says. „It’s going to be all about the high and the low.“
When the high and the low come together, they create a new kind of middle, one that is anything but boring or mainstream. This should suit Danish design, whose metier is real people in an increasingly fluid and globalised world, quite nicely.
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