Reykjavík Grapevine - 14.07.2017, Side 26

26The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 12 — 2017
does a mum send to her child
while wearing this?'” she says,
rolling her eyes. “I said, ’Oh I
don’t know, the message that the
child should behave?’” I almost
choke on my cappuccino.
Humour me
Although Eygló is driven by a
passion for experimentation, it’s
precisely in her unfiltered hu-
mour that you’ll find the key to
her success. As she speaks, it’s
clear that she doesn’t take herself
too seriously. “It’s just clothes—
it’s supposed to
be fun,” she de-
clares, explain-
i n g t h at she
never had the
intent to start a
dialogue about
weapons. “It ’s
just something
that is. It exists
in the world, I
didn’t make it
up, and I’m not
even saying I’m
pro or against it. I was just in-
spired by the TV series! I don’t
think I would ever go very politi-
cal when it comes to clothes.”
Interestingly enough, Iceland-
ers turned out to be much more
sensitive to the patterns than she
had expected. Instead, a lime-
green party dress embellished
with a Colt .45 on the torso and
cartoonish gunfire on the arms
has quickly become a favourite
amongst American tourists. The
truth is, Eygló doesn’t hold her-
self back, nor does she shy away
from controversy. With her una-
pologetic attitude and the gai-
ety of a newcomer, she isn’t just
part of the landscape of Icelandic
fashion—she sets the tone for it.
Into the vortex
After graduating in 2005 from
the Iceland Academy of the Arts,
Eygló didn’t even consider ap-
plying for a job: instead, when
she realised the market couldn’t
offer her what she was looking
for, she began making clothes for
herself.
It was her short internship
at Bernhard Willhelm (who de-
signed Björk’s clothes for her
2007 world tour) that truly made
an impact on her designs, as well
as the three months spent in LA
working for Jeremy Scott. While
it is hard to pinpoint her style,
the real constant in her collec-
tions is her willingness to rein-
vent herself by playing with ide-
as, colours, patterns and textiles.
As soon as she finds something
new, she dives deep into the
vortex, analysing every option,
exploring every possibility un-
til she’s turned her object of ob-
servation inside-out like a sock.
Then, she’s ready to let go.
“I always need to renew myself
completely, otherwise I just get
bored of it,” she enthuses. “I’ve
been doing a lot of prints because
it’s so easy to produce and then
you can have your own fabric in
that sense, but now I’m getting a
little bit tired of that and I want
more texture. And knitwear as
well.”
No more normcore
Eygló’s mind never stops work-
ing. Like many of her contem-
poraries, she finds the global
fashion industry to be devoid of
anything interesting, but this
feeling has very little to do with
her love of Pop Art and a lot to do
with the industry’s propensity
to look back at itself instead of
moving forward.
It’s apt that we meet right dur-
ing Couture Week. Besides Val-
entino, where Pierpaolo Piccioli
managed to stay elegantly afloat
amidst the choppy waves of the
market by introducing resort
pieces into his collection, the
other maisons merely inspired
a yawn. Everybody is attempting
to reinvent the wheel; what the
industry desperately needs, how-
ever, is to break that wheel into a
million pieces and start anew.
“I saw Chanel and it was horri-
ble,” Eygló agrees. “Everybody is
in a crisis because of normcore.
Dead fucking boring. But who
can really do that beside Demna
Gvasalia and Balenciaga? They’ve
already jumped on that train and
conquered it and you can’t exact-
ly copy that, it’s a narrow look to
work with. But what’s going to
happen afterwards?” Albeit not
as ubiquitous here as it is abroad,
the normcore vibe has quickly
permeated Icelandic wardrobes
through the back door, leverag-
ing the trend for minimal hip-
hop sportswear. Put together
Adidas sweatpants, any plain
crop top and a baseball cap and
you’ve got the 101 uniform. But
when you have to buy all these
things to feel cool or relevant, is
that really you?
“I don’t think you’re really ex-
pressing yourself when you’re
buying that kind of stuff, when
you’re just buying the label—like
these DH L t-shirts,” Eygló sug-
gests, exasperated. “I saw a guy
in a Vetements jacket and I felt
sorry for that person. They’re
laughing at your ass, seriously.
You buy a DHL t-shirt for $500
but you just look like an un-in-
dependent loser if you’re being
fooled into buying this stuff.”
Tales of fascists
and a steampunk
revolution
Considering she possesses the
hyped curiosity of a child, the
respect Eygló has for the quirky
whims of Bernhard Willhelm
or the creativity of Christopher
Kane doesn’t take me by surprise.
In particular, their penchant for
experimentation when it comes
to textiles often inspires her to
push her own boundaries and
play around with technology. No
stone is left unturned.
Lately, for instance, she’s
been mesmerized by the Icelan-
dic band Hatari, which defines
itself as a multimedia project
whose props include steampunk
looks that veer towards a fascist
aesthetic. “I have been to some
of their concerts and I was ab-
solutely blown away by their
vibe and their looks,” Eygló says
dreamily. “It’s amazing because
it is so far from being cool at this
moment but they took that vibe
and did something weird with it.
And I’m not a steampunk type,
it’s nothing to do with that. They
just took something so out of
fashion and made it cool—I loved
it!”
Unequivocally, there is a little
bit of Miuccia Prada in her—a
feeling she unknowingly con-
firms when she reveals some of
the details of her new venture
with Icelandic artist Egill Sæb-
jörnsson. Not only does she tack-
le the idea of ugliness in her new
collection, but she also challeng-
es her own knowledge of raw ma-
terials. Eygló has never worked
with porcelain before; yet, she’ll
be using it for the gold-plated
claw jewellery she has been de-
signing and creating.
“It’s still wearable stuff,” she
assures me with a joyous chuck-
le. “It’s amazing when you get a
lot of ideas but I actually enjoy
making a lot of patterns and
shaping the clothes. I enjoy the
whole process. Sometimes you
get tired of making things so you
have to learn to give yourself a
break and just not think about
this at all.”
Þetta reddast
Her relaxed attitude takes me
aback. It seems to me that she
has not exactly chosen the most
stress-free path for herself, con-
sidering how much pressure the
global market has been exerting
on designers since the advent of
social media. Not only is it hard
to create something new when
you’re designing at least four col-
lections a year, but it’s also in-
credibly difficult to balance out
the creative side of the industry
with the financial aspects of it.
More and more, young de-
signers are forced to be business
savvy as well as inventive, and if
managing one’s own label can al-
most be perceived as liberating to
an untrained eye, the influence
of investors and clients often
takes a toll on the mind and the
body. We’ve seen it before: even
Alexander McQueen had diffi-
culties reconciling his own crea-
tive ethos with the demands of
the public. Or take the genius of
J. W. Anderson: how long can he
keep up with the pressure com-
ing from Spanish brand Loewe as
well as from his own label, which
demands around-the-clock col-
lections for womenswear and
menswear?
Luckily, Eygló explains, such
pressure doesn’t exist in Iceland,
and the reason for it is mainly
cultural. In a country where time
seems to follow its own clock, life
is lived at a slower pace and with
a slightly more carefree atti-
tude—or, as she calls it, a lack of
discipline. It’s not a coincidence
that Icelanders’ favourite phrase,
often whipped out to reassure
people everything is going to be
fine, is “þetta reddast.” Things
will work out. “Of course it’s go-
ing to be fine but at what point is
it not going to be fine?” she asks.
“Where is the limit?”
“It’s just
clothes. It’s
supposed to
be fun.”