The epitome of avant-garde, purposeful and brave elegance is conjuring itself around the city of Copenhagen like a witch’s hot and firing cauldron. A sleepy, cold and simple town you may mention muttering to yourself but action speaks louder than words. It is an exciting awakening of a small giant treading on our toes over what we may have anticipated through the new year of clothes from the usual suspects of individualistic designers.

However, many names may capture your attention in a spirited and joyous magical sense. This special place of Copenhagen blends a strong subtlety of dark shapes, moods and outlines with eye-catching, multi-arranged colours complimented by the fair skin shown through the extremely cold weather. The great aspect where both etiquette and social concern and respect is in unison with a raw passion for food, creative endeavours for example, French Cinema, post-punk revivals, Rock’N'Roll to traditional textile hand-knitted garments to collecting an eclectic mix of vintage denim. The focal point to noticed about the city’s inhabitants is this fusion of not outcasting Fashion as a demeanor for snobbery or from a result of high wealth, it is an equal entity with music and social studies like History that provide people an ability to create and attain strong interests with various different people.

Photography by Sane Frank and Elizabeth Heltoft, Soundvenue Feb 2008

Soundvenue has been the city’s publication on the international musicial and cultural scene, adding a Danish perspective to artists and designers abroad. Their focus issue on Fashion released last month brought an amazing array of Danish designers all brooming with an eclectic entity infused with highly notable collection work.

Hans Christian Madsen is a Danish born designer who graduated from the Royal College of Art in menswear design. He has been able to portray and develop a personality that crashes between an idea for social avant-garde and the traditional Scandinavian knitted and weaving techniques which are typically produced for knitwear. In his graduate collection last year, his enjoyment from references of functional and aesthetics of military workmanship in workwear and uniforms and the limited colour pallette stemmed him into production a collection of a chic schoolboy chino folded pant with superfuturistic voyage of Robocop meeting Martin Margiela. Cross-front weaves with dark military style boots, gray long wavy contoured overcoats and dark black over-sized wool cardigans certainly matches Hans contemporary concern for deconstruction within his designed garments.

Hans Christian Madsen, Backstage at London Fashion Week 2008 - Photography by Ellis Scott

For his recent Autumn/Winter 2008, his response was in fascination where he spoke in the February Fashion Issue edition of Soundvenue was old mugged photographs of criminals dating back to the 1950’s, certainly the time where the Mafioso were most active. His collection shown at London Fashion Week this year was further expressed by deconstructed knit and pant wear. The show consisted at the start the track My People by Kimberly Moyes and Julian Hamilton, electronic duo Sydney based The Presets. Their past interview with Pedestrian.tv involved the duo speaking themselves as two lads who show respect and quiet but when they perform on stages and their live shows, they take on a major character change evoking extreme electro-clash dance moves.

Hans Christian Madsen, MA Fashion 2007 Presentation - Royal College of Art

Maybe this is a reflection towards Hans’ collection, a breakout of criminals inside prison cells? Quiet, silent and unchallenging but if anarchy was introduced, how would criminals react being released into the outside world? And how if in an idealist way, Hans was a prisoner himself, designing clothes for prisoners upon leaving? Innovative tailored evolutionist garments that wavered from the typical dress sense of a t-shirt and jeans. A heavy dark contemporary revolt as described by Hans from Dazed Digital:

“Rebel style”: 1950’s youth culture, the time between the end of World War II and the election of John F. Kennedy. The shift in Hollywood film, the fresh wave of actors: Marlon Brando and James Dean. This new attitude and style: the leather jacket combined with jeans and T-shirt.”

Hans Christian Madsen, Autumn/Winter 2008 - London Fashion Week

Hans Christian Madsen received his MA in Fashion from the Royal College of Art, London in 2007. He now works and lives in London having past lived in Moderna, Italy working for Diesel.

Mimicry, 2007

Tilde Marie Bjerregaard Sørensen’s work is a method of producing a futuristic approach to draping, cutting and defining proportion and surface texture as a working designer. Finishing her MA in Fashion with a focus in womenswear from Danmarks Designskole, she challenges herself by defining a close relationship between uniformity and rebellion.

Photograph by Mikell Møller

Photography by Sane Frank and Elizabeth Heltoft, Soundvenue Feb 2008

The way in which she introduces wool and leather is also an idea of co-existing a material of conservatism and being in-different. The collection of her work produced for her graduation titled Mimicry expresses this notion of imitation but in a highly manipulative way. In Danish, writing about her collection from her school she explains:

“Jeg har i min kollektion søgt, at form og funktionalitet går op i en højere enhed. Selvom jeg i mit afgangsprojekt fra Danmarks Designskole har været optaget af at nå frem til et nyt, visuelt udtryk, sker det uden at gå på kompromis med, at tøjet skal kunne bruges på gaden. I projektet Mimicry tager jeg udgangspunkt i kontrasten mellem rockernes brutale stil og de uniformerede skoleelevers uskyldighed. Resultatet er efter min mening befriet for klicheer, da jeg konsekvent har taget såvel læderjakker og tatoveringer som uld blazer og bordeaux skoletaske og kombineret og tvistet dem, i mit eget formsprog.”

Tilde Marie Bjerregaard Sørensen, Finalist and Winner of Designers Nest 2007 (pictured)

Her collection is a strong use of black and white with metallic colours. Inspiration and motivation in the way she interpets Fashion Design preferring the dark influences of film maker Stanley Kubrick, music video director Chris Cunningham who produced Shenna Is A Parasite video for The Horrors. She trained with Viennese designers Hermann Fankhauser Helga Schania from Wendy&Jim in 2006 and in 2005, worked on a project at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna for Veronique Branquinho.

Photography by Sane Frank and Elizabeth Heltoft, Soundvenue Feb 2008

Remember that time you watch Mr. Bean in the episode where he ventures to the seaside, scared and afraid of putting his swimmers on so he decides to pull his pants from his underpants? That nostalgic scene is similarly portrayed in Trine Wackerhausen Autumn/Winter 2008 collection. It conjures a 1970’s picturesque scenic beach route where a beautifully tailored range where there are no set rules in associations with a dress being only an object of street-smart credibility. She brings a twist to her work, notably through the scarecrow, a characteristic element of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. She strives however for her fondness in the modern avant-garde designers such as Belgian Dries Van Noten, Yves Saint Laurent which brings the black classicism to the construction of how a dress fits tighly and loosely around the waist down and across the shoulders and arms. Her collection is therefore both sophisticated and streamlined, it is not very serious but casualistic that her designed dresses can be worn in any surrounding.

Autumn/Winter 2008 Collection

Trine is a Danish born womenswear designer finishing at the Beckmans School of Design, Stockholm in 2000. Since then, her collection is available at Henrik Vibskov at Krystalgade 6 in Copenhagen.

Photography by Sane Frank and Elizabeth Heltoft, Soundvenue Feb 2008

Diana Brinks, 2007 collection shown at Best Shop Berlin

Diana Brinks (pictured)

The exploration of Diana Brinks’ work can be delicately noted when visiting your little design bookshop, browing endlessly with no certain time constraints, the old past pages from Lanvin, Yves Saint Laurent or even the work of Balcenciaga in their heavily printed self-indulgent books. Diana, who studies at the Copenhagen Academy of Fashion, now resides in her comfortable residence in Shoreditch, London, a locality welcomed for music and theatre. The cold climate and gloomy weather ever so mentioned about England is transcended into a delicate razor -sharp classic silhouette . The cutting methods of using silk, wool and leather offers that sense of purity and classical permanency. Draping, folding and the traditional techniques of Japanese origami. As you will see in her Autumn/Winter 2008 range, the result is a look in which shows a metallic leather liquidfied effect, the model used is not even there but is being swallowed by the dress as a stovepipe glove. It is strong tailored focus and one in which gives you the idea of a clean, cut, quality finished haircut you have with your closely acquainted hairdresser.

Diana Brinks, Autumn/Winter Collection 2008

Åse Helena Hansen enjoys the traditional Norwegian knitting patterns and the intimacy of her a designers surrounds itself in the material choice of denim. She has find the material liberating and although it has been widely used in the development of American pop culture and fashion such as the rise of jeans company, Levis determinedly Åse seeks to compliment it with a Nordic incision. The meticulous fashion of delicate and handcrafted with care approach enviaged by Japanese textile design is explored by Åse. A complex but a consolidate result as part of the finishing collection, in particular in her Spring/Summer 2008 collection shows this.

Photography by Sane Frank and Elizabeth Heltoft, Soundvenue Feb 2008

Bitte Rand Kand is headed by Norwegian designer Åse Helena Hansen and Sanne Skjoedt.

Sandra Backlund (pictured)

Interview with Sandra Backlund - Berlin Fashion Week 2007

A short while ago, an entry was made about Swedish Designer Sandra Backlund who brings an artistic sculptural foundation to her work. She explores many traditional and modern handcrafted and experiments in various forms and materials when infusing a collection together. She was acclaimed last year having presented such a fascinating approach to contemporary Swedish Fashion through Stockhom Fashion Week, one that spoked out much by Swedish branding agency BrittonBritton. As she places a rationale to her work, she explains:

“But it is through my heavy wool collage knitting that I have found the ultimate way to express myself.”

She has been unchallenged at the thought of actually being a Scandinavian designer who would be producing a womenswear or menswear collection. She sparked out the most because of her purpose and her pursuit to actively maintain her studies evidently through Beckmans in 2004 that Fashion in that word, means more than the sense of creation a wearable collection. Pushing the boundaries to in fact, creating an out of the box structured clothed garment using wool, leather, hair and even clothes pegs.
Her work is to be greatly admired but in a commerical design sense where we live in a society that requires day-to-day clothes, can what she creates be produced for us? It certainly can refer to Gareth Pugh’s work so far for his sombre theme of expression.

In No Time, 2008 - Photography by Ola Bergengren

Sandra studied Fashion Design at Beckmans School of Design in Stockholm and finished in 2004. She was a receipient of the prestigious Hyères Festival International de Mode et Photographie in 2007 for her knitwear collection.

Hans Christian Madsen
Tilde Marie Bjerregaard Sørensen
Trine Wackerhausen
Diana Brinks
Bitte Kai Rand
Sandra Backlund

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Photography (top) by Sane Frank and Elizabeth Heltoft for Soundvenue Fashion Issue Feb 2008
Mimicry, Photography by Mikkel Moller for Tilde Marie Bjerregaard Sørensen
In No Time, Photography by Ola Bergengren for Sandra Backlund
Diana Brinks, Photography by Yvan Rodic
Hans Christian Madsen, MA Royal College of Art 2007 - Photography by Christopher Moore
Interview with Sandra Backlund - Berlin Fashion Week 2007 by Modabot

Tags: Copenhagen Fashion Week, Diana Brinks, Hans Christian Madsen, Sandra Backlund, Tilde Marie Bjerregaard Sørensen, Trine Wackerhausen

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 at 6:41 am and is filed under Mode - Danish. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.