Reykjavík Grapevine - 29.07.2016, Page 24

Having dressed Reykjavík’s residents
in patterned designs and jeweled fin-
ery for the past several years, Hildur
Yeoman has slowly but steadily be-
come one of Iceland’s leading fashion
designers. We met the designer in her
workshop as she was putting the fin-
ishing touches on her magical sum-
mer collection, Euphoria.
Surrounded by drawings, textiles,
jewels and patterns, Hildur starts to
trace the beginnings of her prolific
career. Because of her interest in illus-
tration, she started studying fine arts
in secondary school. Afterwards she
shifted to fashion design at the Ice-
land Academy of the arts, graduating
in 2006.
Hildur tells me that fashion had al-
ways been a mystery to her. When she
was studying art, her coursework was
intellectually heavy and her work fo-
cused primarily on political matters—
she eventually gravitated towards
fashion design because she wanted to
try something lighter. Telling stories
has always been Hildur’s main focus.
She uses drawings to illustrate the
stories her fashion tells.

Yulia

After her studies, Hildur started cre-
ating colourful accessories: bags,
scarves and necklaces. Her designs
were sold at pop-up markets and at the
101 boutique Kron-Kron. “I started cre-
ating accessories because they didn’t
require different sizes and could fit
everyone,” she says. “I wanted to start
by designing something simple while I
was getting on my feet.”
Hildur quickly moved on to creating
full collections, including the playful
Cherry Bomb collection and the darkly
magical Xanadu collection, which con-
sisted solely of showpieces. Next came
her first ready-to-wear clothing line,
Yulia, which was named fashion de-
sign of the year by the 2015 Reykjavík
Grapevine design awards. According
to our report at the time, the collec-
tion “swiftly became the highlight of
the fashion year, and set jaws wagging
throughout the design community,
and beyond.”
The collection was inspired by Hil-
dur’s great-grandmother, Yulia Yeo-
man, a housewife from New Jersey.
“She was an inspiring woman who
left her family and life as a housewife
to join a motorcycle gang, quite simi-
lar to the Hell’s Angels,” Hildur says.
“Everything I create is in some way in-
spired by her, which is why my designs
are all connected even though they
have different emphasises.” Hildur’s
designs have been described as flat-
tering statement pieces with beautiful
stories behind them.
Strong women like her grandmoth-
er are Hildur’s inspiration. She uses
interesting, prolific women as models
in her photo shoots. The campaign for
her second clothing line, Flóra, by pho-
tographer Saga Sig, included models of
all kinds. “People come in all shapes and
sizes,” says Hildur. “Whether they’re
skinny or curvy, old or young, I want to
design clothes for them. I want to make
clothes that look good on all kinds of
women. And they were all models that I
found to be cool and chic.”

Flóra

Hildur’s second clothing line was in-
spired by the powerful mystical en-
ergy of nature, and the women smart
enough to take advantage of it. She
studied herbs and grasses that possess
healing powers, and can be used me-
dicinally, or magically—for example,
to gain spiritual powers, or entice
hearts.
“I met a sorceress who helped me
use Icelandic flowers to practice sor-
cery,” Hildur explains to me. “I learned
how to create a love spell and a power
spell and used the ingredients to cre-
ate the patterns.”
The pattern in Hildur’s love spell
dress should attract romance to the
wearer, while the power spell pattern
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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 11 — 2016
24

in Hildur Yeoman’s World of Fashion
Words Hrefna Björg Gylfadóttir
Photos Saga Sig
Witchcraft
and Hypnagogia