Reykjavík Grapevine - 01.03.2013, Blaðsíða 54

The Reykjavík Grapevine
How does Reykjavík’s fashion
scene compare to the one in
Los Angeles?
It’s completely different. Everything is
much bigger in LA. You’re so isolated
here in Iceland. It manifests especially
in material-supply, but you have to ad-
just to what’s available rather than do-
ing anything you can imagine.
What do you think of RFF?
I don’t want be a drag, but there are a
lot of things lacking with this festival,
as there is in the industry here. But it’s
good to be able to maintain restraint
and RFF makes designers think about
making their collection. Icelandic de-
signers are used to designing a nice
dress and then producing it in seven
colours and different fabrics and then
trying to sell as many as you can.
When you design a collection you think
about the whole picture, about build-
ing a brand. You constantly have to ask
yourself question like, “what do I stand
for? Which model should I use? What
is my demography?” You have to think
about the whole, like creating a pack-
age. It’s like conducting a symphony.
That is what RFF has brought to the
scene, which wasn’t there before.
Tell me about your collection
this year.
The REY pallet is pretty dark. I like
asymmetry. I choose fabrics that I find
beautiful. I know it’s a cliché, but my de-
sign is never the most glamorous dress
in the closet, but it’s probably the gar-
ment you’ll pull out most often. It’s that
timeless piece that you choose when
you think you’ll be overdressed in that
other dress.
I studied a lot of dance costumes by
Isadora Duncan, for instance, when
preparing my collection. The dance
costumes inspired me because of their
flexibility; I was hooked on the move-
ment of the fabric. So it’s this flowing
element as well as men inspired tai-
lored clothing. It’s almost more like a
costume—a new-age costume.
Do Icelandic designers think
practically when designing
their clothes, keeping in mind
that they have to try and sell
them?
No. I think it’s about 50/50. Practical
thinking didn’t really exist a few years
back, which is healthy and awesome in
a way. But you have to consider many
elements. If you’re designing a dress
that is expensive to make, a flamboy-
ant piece of art that would look great
on the catwalk, then it’s probably too
pricy to sell. You have to have a few
showpieces in your collection that you’ll
never sell, but 75% of it has to be some-
thing you can produce in a few sizes.
Some things only work on a perfectly
built model, but as brilliantly looking as
it can be, you’ll probably never sell it.
You can at best let the models borrow
it, but they won’t afford to buy it. So you
have to find this middle ground, which
is annoying but that’s how it is.
Has the transformation from
graphics to fashion affected
your designs?
Well, I make all my designs graphically.
The collections are graphic. It’s mostly
textile design, which is in essence pretty
graphic. I’m focused on working with
textile and knitting. Prints and stuff like
that. I also create the mood board [a
collage of images and ideas to create
a concept] graphically so it pretty much
dominates my design.

How did you go about mixing
fashion with the film medium?
I made my first short ‘The Rabbit Hole,’
with a grant I received for marketing
purposes. I’ve always been enthusias-
tic about filmmaking. I think by fusing
various forms of art you obtain a new
vision, which is healthy for your creative
psyche.
Your films are however quite
different from the promo
films you see in the fashion
industry…
Most fashion films hinge on mood and
atmosphere. They don’t have an idea to
work from; they just have a look in mind
and feature models goofing around.
I find that pointless and shallow. My
method is de facto criticism on the way
people make videos in fashion. By mak-
ing a narrative film you kind of take it to
the next level.
The fashion film tends to reflect the
ego of the artist and nobody besides
the artist understands it. I get this take
on things, but I find it boring. You can ac-
tually create this “world” while allowing
people to understand it.
Do you think your collections
have the same rebellious at-
titude as your fashion films?
Definitely. I don’t fit in anywhere. I’m a
rebel. I don’t like labelling. If you have a
certain style and an eye for things, you
can use any medium as long as you stick
to your own rules. With me it’s always
the David and Goliath battle. I’m always
at war with the rest. It’s not that I want it;
it just kinda happens.
Tell me about your new col-
lection in collaboration with
66°N.
It started last year when 66°N was do-
ing a show in The Blue Lagoon and
borrowed some of my pants and acces-
sories to accompany their collection.
Sæunn, the head of design at 66°N, sug-
gested that we do something together
and we finally decided to create this co-
op, a fusion collection. It’s a great land-
ing actually. I’ve always wanted to use a
tech-factory, and they’ve been searching
for a more creative take on their stuff.
And this is just the beginning. We plan
on taking things further and hopefully
we’ll have a new collection every year.
What role has RFF played in
the fashion world?
It has raised the fashion industry to an-
other level. Before RFF you couldn’t re-
ally showcase anything and it’s impor-
tant that designers have a platform to
show their work. The cost to partake is
relatively low but we still manage to fly
in industry people and make it look a bit
fancy. We realise of course that this is a
tiny event compared to fashion weeks
in Copenhagen and Paris and such, but
we’ve managed to put Iceland on the
map. And it’s going be exciting to see
where we’ll go from here.
Something happened a few years back
with fashion in Iceland. Maybe it was
part of the creative tsunami following
the economic collapse or maybe it
was the result of all of the art attention
that Iceland has been getting over the
years. For whatever reason, studios
suddenly started popping up all around
and Icelanders were bombarded with
headlines about fashion designers
making it big at all those fashion extrav-
aganzas around the globe. Suddenly
we had a vibrant fashion scene.
But the scene was rowdy and un-
tamed. Rather than boasting collec-
tions, designers were item driven and
their main platform was on the side-
lines at a music festival or an addition
to some other happening. What I’m
getting at is that it never had a home.
And being an orphan results in a lack of
roots and a lack of discipline. It was in
dire need of a place to call home.
BIRTH OF A REALM
In 2009, a group of five fashion aficio-
nados sat down family-style to discuss
a mission: to create a fashion week-like
event in Reykjavík. And so the Reykja-
vík Fashion Festival was born. The fes-
tival’s director Þórey Eva describes its
birth as a result of mixed feelings about
how Icelandic fashion was being repre-
sented and branded abroad. “To most
industry people, it was simply put unac-
ceptable,” she explains.
But it’s one thing to create a fash-
ion festival and another thing to actu-
ally execute it. Iceland’s fashion gang
wasn’t used to preparing a collection
and creating a brand. Or at least not
to the extent required for this kind of
show. “It’s been a constant learning
process; we are learning by doing,”
Þórey says. “A fashion festival is kind
of like making a movie if you will, it’s
a collective process. Everything has
to come together—the clothes, hair &
make up, models, music and set de-
sign.”
CELEBRATING ITS FOURTH
EDITION
This year’s edition will be the big-
gest one yet in terms of attendance,
welcoming several highly esteemed
foreign journalists including photogra-
pher Roxanne Lowit. Her posers have
ranged from Salvador Dalí to Scarlett
Johansson so the models skittering
on the catwalk will certainly be in good
company if they cross Roxanne’s lens.
However fancy and chic the in-
dustry people will be, it’s still ultimately
about the designers and their collec-
tions. This year’s festival has selected
a nice bunch of captivating designers,
a whole seven of them to be precise.
Some are novices at RFF, but most
have gone through this process at
least once before. We sat down with
a couple of them and uncloaked their
views on this exciting hullabaloo that is
to take place.
RFF N°4
A Dark Pragmatist:
REBEKKA REY
A Rebel With A Vision:
MUNDI VONDI – 66°N
The Fashionistas are back in town
By Sigurður Kjartan Kristinsson
RFF’s Seven
Ella
Andersen & Lauth
JÖR by Guðmundur
Jörundsson
Mundi 66°N
Farmers Market
Huginn Muninn
REY
Alísa Kalyanova
Alísa Kalyanova
DesignMarch Special 2013 14Check www.rff.is for more info.