• PERRET SCHAAD X Silhoutte - Design with Passion

    Written by Meghan Scott

    As we immerse ourselves in the abundance of fashion from the Autumn/Winter 2018 collections, we contemplate which pieces will reign supreme for the fashion set, watching the shows in each city and drooling over our favourite wares. And then comes that alluring moment, when we come across a “see-now/buy-now” opportunity. This concept is tricky for most designers showing runway collections, the means just aren't available just yet. There has been an interesting alternative to keep us connected to the collections before they hit the stores and Berlin’s hottest fashion design duo, PERRET SCHAAD have realized this for this season.

    As consumers become increasingly educated in their purchasing habits as each day passes, and keeping up with the fast-fashion cycles can be dizzying, it has become a trend that the average shopper tends to invest in a collaboration piece or an item from a capsule collection from a brand, especially before the main collection is available. The luxury Austrian eyewear brand Silhouette, a household name in eyewear, known for their minimal lightweight frameless designs has collaborated PERRET SCHAAD creating a collection named Tital Minimal. The Icon. Johanna Perret and Tutia Schaad share the commitment for reduction, and unique and functional design, which is the DNA of this collaboration. The duo has been compared to the likes of Jil Sander, and have incited Berlin’s fashion scene to the forefront of the current circuit.

    The dynamic shape juxtaposed with a print on the lens in an array of colours that reflect the AW18 collection, give us a full-frame modern sunglass look. Four strong combinations of frame and lens colors that allow them to see the world in their own way: copper with orange-blue, brass with mint, dark red with gray and gold with caramel. 

    ‘Working with Johanna and Tutia was very inspiring, and we quickly found common ground as designers,’ explains Roland Keplinger, Silhouette’s head of design. ‘It was interesting combining the fashion side of things with our technical know-how, which was a key factor in making this extraordinary piece of eyewear.’

    At the show, in an intimate atmosphere, the models were arranged in a “Last Supper” arrangement, socializing quietly and subtly taking turns taking a stroll towards the audience. A colour blocking palette of pastel pinks and green, mixed with greys, browns, purples, and accents of iridescent orange, blues, and purples in a mix of satin silks, chiffons, light wools and jersey were draped in structured a-symmetrical contrasted with symmetrical figures. These elements created a perfect ambiance for the sunglasses to shine. Archive pieces were added throughout as they usually bring back selected pieces in their collections. When asked about the inspiration for this collection, they told me that it was intuitively; a special feeling in the air they felt together. They also told me that they feel good working with Silhouette, because it is a family run business and that they are produced in Austria and Germany, sourcing materials from France and Italy. 

    This is the fourth collaboration that the CEO of Silhouette, Jan Rosenburg has participated in. ‘PERRET SCHAAD focuses on individual people just like Silhouette does, and this principle informs their functional, yet perfectly-formed designs. Silhouette’s iconic “Titan Minimal Art – The Icon” shares the same DNA.”

    The sunglasses are currently available and we can adorn our face with PERRET SCHAAD while we enjoy the summer days and when the season changes, we will be ready to wrap ourselves in our favourite runway look. Shop here.

  • 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.

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