Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.03.2010, Blaðsíða 8

8
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 03 — 2010
Welcome to Iceland
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WHO? WHERE?
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Quick guide to the information
you need while enjoying your stay
Fashion & Design Spotlight
Remember the Iceland Fashion Week
scandal of last year? Try to forget
it. It was awful. Instead, spend your
memory and set your sights on the
forthcoming Reykjavík Fashion Festival,
a cool new initiative by a group of
local fashion designers and industry
players. Conceived of as a platform to
raise unity within and awareness of
the Icelandic fashion industry, it will
showcase the works of 22 of Iceland’s
most exciting labels and designers.
Reykjavík Fashion Festival has
been in the making ever since that
first horrified blog post about the
Fashion Week fiasco made its way to
the Internet. It is a collaborative effort,
and it smacks of ambition and high
hopes for a fledgling industry that
seeks acknowledgment and support
to become the currency raising export
giant it has the potential to. In short,
it’s a good idea. We caught up with
RFF executive director Ingibjörg
Finnbogadóttir – a ten-year veteran of
the fashion industry who’s operated
in both Reykjavík and New York – and
had her divulge some information on
the project.
“The Reykjavík Fashion Festival
was co-founded by clothing labels
Nikita, Birna, E-label and Mundi, with
the stated purpose of showcasing the
Icelandic fashion industry in a positive
and accurate manner,” Ingibjörg
begins. “There are many good people
collaborating on putting on the festival,
which has been in preparations since
this fall.”
We believe that there is great
potential for the Icelandic fashion
industry, and a great need for an event
like the RFF. This is indicated by the
sheer amount of impressive labels
that applied to participate in this first
edition of the festival. We initially aimed
at featuring ten labels, but after the
barrage of quality applications we
received we extended the number
to 22. Soon in the process we were
approached by Eldar and Steinþór of
Faxaflói and Borgin, who have been
collaborating with us and staging a
music programme that goes along with
the festival.
Even though there are many
different aspects to the concept, RFF
is at its core fashion festival, and is
primarily meant to bring the local
fashion community together and
to raise public awareness of how
fertile and vibrant the industry is – to
underline its importance as an export
product. Many of the participants have
had considerable success abroad and
we have numerous connections to the
international industry, fashion media
and the like. We’ve already confirmed
coverage in several international
publications and we will be diligently
publicising the event to secure
maximum exposure for Icelandic
fashion design and musicians.
What does the programme look
like?
The fashion programme will take place
in the Kaaber building by Sæbraut, with
two shows happening on Friday night
and three on Saturday. The shows
will be followed by general partying
and debauchery at Kaffibarinn and
NASA, in connection with the music
programme, as well as an exclusive VIP
party or two.
The fashion shows will be invite only
and limited to 300 guests representing
the industry and the media – our
budget doesn’t really permit us to make
it a more public event.
The idea is to make as much
as possible with the funding at our
disposal this year and build around that
in coming years, as we fully intend to
make this an annual thing. The general
public can follow the festival through
our various outlets; we are producing
a documentary on the proceedings,
we’ll be distributing a magazine that
we’re making and will try and make
everything widely available.
What we’re looking at is a long
weekend of fashion, music and fun;
one big party weekend.
Is RFF in any way a reaction to the
Iceland Fashion Week fiasco of last
year?
It is, it is. The idea has been brewing
in many places for a while, including
with some of the festival’s founders.
In a way it is only natural: Nikita has
been a large export number since 2001,
E-label is doing business in the UK
and Birna is retailing in Denmark and
Scandinavia. Common to the people
behind these labels is a concern for the
Icelandic fashion industry, and a will to
show how many talented and qualified
professionals we have operating here
that are fully ready for international
markets.
Everything connected to the fashion
week farce of last fall was indeed a
fiasco. We received horrible press from
influential fashion blogs from New York
and Milan, and the local industry’s
reputation was potentially tarnished.
RFF is in a way our attempt to rectify
that, it is an event produced by people
from the business that care about it
and wish to see it thrive – those are
some very different goals than what
I imagine the woman behind Iceland
Fashion Week’s had in mind.
Would you say Icelandic fashion
has any sort of reputation or image
abroad?
Not yet. We are very young and far
from claiming an identity. But putting
on events like this and showing
ourselves to the outside world is a start
to that.
Is RFF a public festival, or is it
more industry oriented? Can your
average fashion enthusiast partake
in any of it?
It’s an industry festival. But as I said
we are producing a documentary
and making a magazine detailing the
events, so the public can certainly
follow the goings-on quite well.
Is RFF here to stay?
Indeed it is, forever and ever. How will
it evolve? We aim at staging a follow up
event next year and maybe even every
six moths after that – we might even
schedule something for the upcoming
fall, who knows? Our main goal now
is to properly birth the festival and
raise it well in its infancy so that it may
survive at least 100 years. As soon as
the upcoming one is over we’ll start
marketing the concept so that the next
one might be even bigger. And so on.
We aim for bigger and better by the
year – eventually we might even obtain
the Fashion Week moniker?
These are some designed, fashionable times we’re living in.
Everyone seems to be looking their absolute best these days,
what with all the haircuts and the shiny clothes and various
accessories and trinkets people are decorating themselves with.
It hasn’t always been this way, though. If you browse through
photo albums or newspapers from the last century, the first thing
you’ll notice is how cheesy and uncool – sometimes plain ugly –
everyone looks. But not anymore. Fashion and good looks are here
to stay, thanks to the armies of art school graduates, designers and
fashionistas that all chose to follow their dreams so they might help
the rest of the world look slightly better, slightly more together. This
is a good thing, and it should be celebrated.
And celebrate it we will! This March sees a helluva lot of fashion
and design related activities swooping over Reykjavík city like a
breath of fresh air from the god of style and good taste himself (that
would be notable pop singer George Michael). On the surface, all
these events indeed seem celebratory in nature, an excuse for the
fashion crowd to throw parties, get drunk and pat one another on the
back – a stylish pep rally if you will.
But it isn’t that simple. As our series of Q&As with local designers
reveals, Icelandic fashion is still in an infant state; a fledgling industry
that faces a plethora of problems and adversities, one that is seeking
an identity, a purpose and liberation from the shackles of our useless
currency system.
Our correspondents from the fashion world – Sruli Recht, Ásta
Kristjánsdóttir, Rúnar Ómarsson, Mundi and Bára Hólmgeirsdóttir –
are some of the best operating on the island these days. They most
graciously agreed to share their time and knowledge to help us try
and pin down what Icelandic fashion is, what it wants to be and
how it could potentially move things forward to reach wherever it it’s
going.
Reykjavík Finally Gets The Fashion
Festival It Deserves
Ingibjörg Finnbogadóttir
RFF Festival Director
Fashion | Interview
HAUKUR S MAGNÚSSON
JULIA STAPLES
Fashion Distraction
Most of us can’t attend, but it’s still pretty cool