A Norwegian fashion Fairy Tale – LEARN THE BUSINESS. AND STOP DREAMING ABOUT HAUTE COUTURE, BECAUSE FASHION HAS CHANGED. THESE ARE WORDS OF WISDOM FROM NORWAY’S MOST LEGENDARY FASHION DESIGNER PER SPOOK. HE SHOULD KNOW. BECAUSE SO FAR, ONLY FEW HAVE MANAGED TO GET AS FAR AS HIM IN THE INTERNATIONAL WORLD OF HIGH FASHION. By Sissel Hoffengh
Photo: Curtesy of Museum of Crafts and Design/Copyright Per Spook The most famous Per in Norway is no doubt Ibsen’s Peer Gynt. But for the fashion crowd Per Spook is no doubt the greatest Per of them all. In fact when you look at Spook’s life there’s a bit of the adventurous Ibsen character in him as well. For the first it’s his appearance – his skin has that typically Scandinavian freshness, a natural glow you can only get from spending time in the great outdoors. Second it’s his sense of adventure – at 21 he travelled to Paris, the fashion capital of the world, where he became a top couturier with his own signature fashion house plus got accepted into the prestigious Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, which is almost impossible for non-French designers. In those days fashion design was for the few and in Norway there were no fashion colleges or other opportunities for people wanting into the business. How does he feel about the explosion of talent in Norway anno 2012? – It is impressive that so many people try their hands at fashion design, but I have noticed that a few lack knowledge of how it all works. To begin with, the old world with couture houses is dead. You no longer work like we did in the sixties, and there’s just a handful people left who can live like an old fashioned couturier.. Today there are huge corporations behind everything and you have got to make a profit to be interesting, says Spook on the phone from Paris. There are two words frequently used about this fashion legend and they are ”perfect” and ”on
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the clear crip colors and the traditions. – The French love anything exotic and different and in those days they greeted every foreign culture with open arms. I think that helped me a lot. I was like a strange, foreign enfant terrible, he smiles. His success came quickly – in 1978 he won the Haute Couture “Aiguille d’Or” (Golden Needle) prize, and in 1979 he won the almost unattainable prize for the best collection of the season, the “De d’Or” (Golden Thimble). In 1993, he won his second “De d’Or”. But in 1995 he closed the doors of his fashion house for good. The golden age was over, investors wanted a profit he could not deliver. Since then he’s worked with prêt-a-porter in Japan as well as designing glass for Magnor. The latter collaboration has resulted in the company’s famous
Kongle crystal and Kongle porcelain, the Rim wine service and the Sne art range – all commercial successes for the famous glass company. If he has one word of advice for young aspiring fashion designers it is to stop dreaming about haute couture and go into prêt-a-porter. – The rapid changes of today’s trends make it impossible to create clothes and accessories the old fashioned way and make a decent living. Now everything is business, you have got to learn how to be a great salesperson and excel at marketing if you want to make it. Fashion has changed a lot over the years, I was lucky because in my day you could get a head start landing a job as an assistant in the big houses. But haute couture is over, customers no longer want to pay for tailor made clothes and opulence the way it was done in the past. It’s trends off the rail now. That’s where the money is. So people who want into the business today must hone their business skills and have a keen eye for the market. Look to the guys behind the label Moods of Norway, they have found a formula that seems to work.
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bracelet nina vinje sugar shop
bracelets helle brunvoll akoya
neckless ane haugen suger shop
ear ring marianne tefre akoya
ear rings bjørg
WHEN ONE THINKS OF THE MOST ICONIC FRENCH BRANDS THREE ARE A CUT ABOVE AND BEYOND THE OTHERS: CHRISTIAN DIOR, CHANEL, YVES SAINT LAURENT. BUT FOR ACCESSORIES TWO ICONIC NAMES STAND OUT MORE THAN ANYTHING: LOUIS VUITTON AND HERMÈS. TWO COMPANIES WHO PRIDE THEMSELVES ON KEEPING CRAFTS ALIVE IN A UNIQUE WAY – IN FRANCE. By Tone S. Tobiasson Photo: Curtesy of Hermès and Louis Vuitton
Photo illistration: Annikken Vear
It is all about craftsmanship and keeping alive timehonored traditions. In a day and age when cheap has been chic and production has been exported to the Far East, a few iconic companies have held the fort. They decided that there would be a market for something that is synonymous with tradition and heritage. And lo and behold, they have been right. “Archives are the new black” is a credo that is blazing way via social media and the new generation of “archivistas”. They crave authenticity. And this is where Louis Vuitton and Hermès – and their dedication to craftsmanship and local production − come in. Their belief that by ensuring that a craft is nurtured and given status, it can be appreciated as something unique. And the two companies have a history of making some very iconic products that there actually is a waiting list for, as new markets appreciating heritage, craftsmanship and the very concept of uniqueness develop. The consumer is getting very fed up with bad quality items that last for a short while before they mal-function or a part falls off. Cheap chic is more cheap than chic these days. But for some reason Norway – a country for the time being immune to the global recession – seems to latch on to this need for bad quality at cheap prices. I recently heard someone lament this: Norway does not have a functioning middle class. We buy stuff like we still were saving for a rainy day. But instead of buying stuff that would actually carry us through a rainy day – we buy things that will be soggy and gone sour by the time the rain hits. Hermès carré – over 1500 unique motifs have been produced but these silk scarves were from the start not an accessory but an object. More art than artifact. More passion than fashion. “I prefer not to know the number of color schemes we try in a year or to count how many trials are necessary to find the perfect harmony,” says Hermès Director of their Color Panel, Leïla Menchari. She adds: “As well as new motifs there are old ones called back to life again in colors imbued with the spirit of the age.” At its creation in 1937, the trademarks of the carré were set down: 90 cm sides, a silk twill specially treated, a finish for a firm “hand”, and borders rolled by hand. The profusion of designs and color schemes proposed opened up a large spectrum of clients for it and,
over time, defying trends, it became an icon. Coloring in the Lyon workshops starts after the engraving of the design, an essential step in the creation of a carré that can take up to four months of concentration to register all the nuances of a motif on frames that are each different. The Hermès color studio is composed of six young women – six schools you could say – each one with her own style, imagination and sensibility, from which a design is worked in ten or so different ambiances. The range of nuances is infinite: “From forty basic colors, we can achieve millions of tones by playing with the proportions,” explains René Frezza. “The coloring of a design really means setting it to music. We play on the small notes, starting with the background of the carré, which is generally the longest stage. Not because its color is the most present, but because the colorist needs a certain time to ‘enter’ into the design and discover all its subtleties. Everything happens in the head before being translated into color codes and saved on a computer to be passed on to the printing team. If there is one false note, it will be pinpointed from the first trial. The work of a colorist is an exercise in pure creation.” Each season, more than ten new designs on paper arrive in their workshops to be transposed onto silk, before being produced in millions of examples in the Lyon region. At Gandit, Ateliers A.S. and SIEGL, expert hands assure all the stages of production – engraving, colouring, printing. The confidential but essential work of the engravers and the astonishing work of the colorists precedes the printing. Then the ennobling of the cloth gives it its touch, and hand rolling the hems completes the making of a carré. The length of thread necessary for making 1,000 Hermès carrés is therefore equal to the distance between the Earth and the Moon!
Cheap chic is more cheap than chic these days.
The engraver’s skill and art consists of interpreting the nuances of the design and translating them into combinations of colors, which will determine the number of films necessary. Bent over a light box, he traces each color, one by one, on a transparent film placed on the mock-up of the design, using Indian ink and a quill for the fine outlines, and gouache and a brush for the blocks of color. His work, which combines consideration and dexterity, is painstaking and time-consuming. The perfection
The length of thread necessary for making 1,000 Hermès carrés is therefore equal to the distance between the Earth and the Moon!
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HE IS A PERUVIAN DESIGNER, WHO MAKES HIS RUNWAY DEBUT AT OSLO FASHION WEEK BECAUSE OF THE FUR-FREE INITIATIVE LAST YEAR. HIS FIBER OF CHOICE IS THE VICUÑIA, THE WORLD’S MOST EXCLUSIVE ALPACA WOOL. By Tone S. Tobiasson
Illustration: Ganaro Rivas
How old are you? – Does that matter? Age is nothing but a number, but just for the record I’m almost in my mid-twenties! What is your background? – I’m actually self-taught. It wasn’t until I won a contest in Peru hosted by the French Alliance there that I decide to take courses in Buenos Aires, on Visual Merchandising, Styling and also How to create a Cohesive Collection. How did you hear about Oslo Fashion Week and what made you want to show in Oslo?
Genaro Rivas VIOGEN/GVM Fashion Group genaro.rivas@gmail.com Tel: (511) 9464 70 962 Lima 33, Peru
– I first heard about Oslo Fashion Week last year, with the NO FUR policy which I thought was really interesting. I think that if you want expensive fabrics or materials, there are other ways to get them. Also, if we have the technology, why not use it to create really beautiful fabrics without killing animals? I decided to use Oslo as my launch point because I think that it’s a really big revelation in terms of the European Fashion Calendar. The designers have a really cool style and are not afraid of showing their point of view. To me it was really great see how a designer actually marked the tragic events that took place in a subtle, but graceful manner. Plus, to me it is really interesting to show my point of view as a designer in a place far away and colder than my own country, but also a really cosmopolitan city and society.
– The vicuña fiber is one of the most expensive wools in the world, and I am proud that its Peruvian. And it’s expensive because of its properties; the most important is that once a garment is knitted, the vicuña-fabric is very, very soft and warm. It’s not a heavy garment, and it keeps you warm when you are cold, and keeps you cool or normal when you are hot... The Incas really valued vicuñas for their wool. It›s also expensive because the vicuñas can only be shorn every three years. The texture of the fabric, the softness and the satin effect of it is really breathtaking! Peru is associated with knit and alpaca; how do you use your heritage and how do you renew the fashion expression? – I respect the work of Peruvians who do knit-wear. But there are also some other things that I will be presenting that are not just knit and alpaca. I had the pleasure to teach a program to some artisans in Nazca that were worried about how to increase the profitability of the products they made. They design traditional accessories made from leather, which was not very commercial. I received a call and ended up teaching them that the most important thing in a product is versatility, and the artisans started designing products that both represent our heritage, but that also have a fashionable edge, which is the same as principle as I have used in my own collection. That – along with silhouettes and new ways to mix materials to renew my fashion expression.
You mention the vicuña fiber - the world’s most expensive wool - that you are using in your designs. Why did you decide on this? – Well, this my first show abroad, and therefore it was important to me to bring elements and materials from my home country to my designs. The whole collection is made with Peruvian materials: Cotton, alpaca and vicuña. We are also working with silk and taffeta together with prints that have been designed by our team. We decided to use vicuña because of the properties of the fiber, and for me it will be really interesting to show vicuña at OFW. Then you can see how cool it actually is. Can you explain a little more for our Norwegian readers about the vicuña?
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How would you describe your approach to design? Your approach to fashion? Your approach to a Scandinavian market? – My mother used to dress me up when I was little since my father was an important politician in Tumbes, a small town where I used to live when I was a kid. That was when all this interest in looking proper and nice was born, and this was my first approach to fashion. Also I love my mother’s very comfortably chic way of dressing. She is all about attitude and that’s why I always tell my customers that no matter what you are wearing, you have to always look comfortable.
LINE OF OSLO
HELENE WESTBYE
DATE: FEBRUARY 8TH VENUE: SAMFUNNSALEN TIME: 20.00
DATE: FEBRUARY 9TH VENUE: SECRET LOCATION TIME: 19.00 (invitation only)
Photo: Pia Camilla Skjøtehaug
Designer: Line Jeanette Varner Contact info: line@lineofoslo.no Website: www.lineofoslo.no
Designers: Helene Westbye Contact info: helene@helenewestbye.com Website: www.helenewestbye.com
Collection Nordic Hope
Category: Shoes
Inspiration: The Nordic light, ”Pure & Simple”, Norway, frost, natural.
Inspiration: I live by the rule not to follow rules, so what I do tends to be upside down. My style is defined as rock`n’roll with a chic feminine twist, strong expressions and pure lines. I’m inspired by boxes, boxes you can break out of. I’m inspired by everything and nothing, I’m inspired by life. Colors of choice: Burgundy, aubergine, cold cream, ice mocca, mud and black
Materials: Very focused on quality: Cashmere, wool, organic wool, 100% cotton, silk and satin. Colors: gray MELERT, crème, black & white, jeansblue and brown shades. Details in neon pink and yellow. Nordic Hope is about feeling good very day. Being friendly and nice to one another, feminine but with a pair of boy-friend jeans or chinos and lots of knits. We want everyone to feel good about themselves, in all shapes and forms – so we design for all women.
16:15 Sneak Preview of WE Filmens Hus 19:00 Helene Westbye Invitation only
Techniques: Washed leather with antique, vintage effects Double braided painted leather technique Draped leather string technique Spray painted multicolored python leather Materials: Soft Montana lambskin Suede Patent semi-shiny leather Python Toscana lambskin Cow hides News: I will be launching bags in addition to shoes, using much of the same materials. So far I have several stores selling my shoes in Norway, and after I was included in a book featuring some of the best shoe designers world-wide, I have been approached by several retailers. A small range of accessories: Crystal earrings, rings, necklaces and bracelets.
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