Reykjavík Grapevine - 14.07.2017, Page 25

Fashion, She
Wrote
Eygló Margrét
Lárusdóttir, the
mastermind behind
ready-to-wear label
EYGLO, talks
clothes, the joys
and pitfalls of the
fashion industry,
and the dangers of a
normcore kind of life.
Words:
Alice
Demurtas
Photos:
Rut
Sigurðar-
dóttir
25The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 12 — 2017
“I’d like a cortado, please.”
That’s a good start. Eygló Mar-
grét Lárusdóttir, the woman be-
hind the eponymous fashion la-
bel EYGLO, certainly knows her
coffee, and I appreciate that.
With long legs clad in a sim-
ple semi-camouflage Vivienne
Westwood jumpsuit and a fresh,
makeup-free face, Eygló takes a
seat right in front of a window
with the elegance of a swan,
while I clumsily climb an impos-
sibly high chair right next to her.
She rarely looks at me, but she’s
always present, often pausing
before she speaks as if she were
choosing her words carefully be-
fore letting them tumble out and
fill the space between us. Much
to my amusement, however, I
soon find out that she’s not one
to mince words.
A colourful upheaval
“I can’t wait until this normcore
vibe is over,” she sighs, resting
her head on the palm of her hand.
“I hate it, I seriously hate it.” Not
that I needed that clarification:
a single look at her designs and
one is immediately transported
to a realm of vivid colours and
complicated textures. In a coun-
try that has turned fashion into
an extension of its rigid win-
ters, her collections are pure
revolution. Bid farewell to boring
blacks and anonymous mossy
shades; welcome bright orange
and acid green. That’s not to say
that she has discarded neutrals
altogether—but when they do
pop up, they’re balanced out by
funky prints and patterns of her
own design.
Her last collection, a testament
to her love for experimentation,
juxtaposes soft cuts with far-out
patterns ranging from guns and
daggers to Keith Haring-inspired
chalk outlines of a dead body.
Her pièce de résistance, a lime
green suede jacket made of ve-
gan leather flown in from Japan,
bears the beaming face of Dame
Angela Landsbury meticulously
laser-cut right into the fabric.
“I got better feedback for [the col-
lection] Murder She Wrote than I
had dared but a few women were
also very insulted by it. I think
it ’s hilarious,” Eygló laughs.
“They think it’s very rude-look-
ing to carry weapons on a piece
of clothing, but you see it on TV
so why not on a piece of gar-
ment?”
As she speaks, she laughs often,
and with gusto, at almost every-
thing. She’s not PC, but neither
is she puerile. “One woman even
asked, 'What kind of message