Artistic license might be just the cure for what ails us each fashion season.

With fashion week season slowly melting away the deep winter freeze here in Europe, it is promising to feel a bit of stylistic heat from the recent runway shows in Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, and Stockholm. Autumn/Winter 2013 might be the last thing on our minds as we struggle to channel coral-hued resort ensembles, but looking ahead can be a good thing when so many creative dimensions are at play. The sculptural experimentation seen on the catwalks during January and early February have demonstrated, perhaps, that smaller European design houses know how to take risks with conceptually bold approaches to their collections. Whether through extreme knitwear, origami fold wearables, or cool geometry, the license to explore fashion follies seems hyper-real in combination with a sustainable edge.

One of the things that I like about the smaller European shows that take place before the heavy-hitter line-ups in New York, Paris, London, and Milan is the excitement that comes from supporting local talent in style geist outposts where fashion schools and converts to sustainable style are looking to cure their fashion malaise. Perhaps this is also why some of the recent catwalk presentations can afford to be a bit more theatrical, as designers present their works as part of a storytelling continuum and with textile innovation as a creative selling point.

Designer Isabell de Hillerin’s MOSAIC collection (photo by Amos Fricke)

I was so impressed last January with the public interest in Berlin Fashion Week – anyone could attend the presentations at the Lavera Showroom (RSVP’s required, though). Berlin has demonstrated increased momentum on the green fashion frontier with venues like The GREENshowroom, The Ethical Fashion Show Berlin, as well as this year’s first Slow Fashion Awards. I was smitten yet again with Berlin-based ethical fashion label, Isabell de Hillerin, who sources many of her woven and embroidered textiles in Romania. Isabell’s new MOSAIC collection encourages the wearer to experiment freely in order to find lasting styling solutions and wardrobe combinations. The designer shares, “Playing with balance, this latest collection is inspired by its individual parts that collectively form a mosaic of colors and shapes. Rich and contrasting fabrics fuse with soft shapes to define a new whole. Folkloric handmade Romanian materials combined with clean cuts represent a position between new design and tradition.”

Princess Máxima (center) at The Green Fashion Competition during Amsterdam Fashion Week (photo courtesy of Style.com)

The much-anticipated Green Fashion Competition at Amsterdam Fashion Week generated quite a bit of interest this season, and the finalists definitely demonstrated a range of eco solutions to the three-piece runway presentation. Much of the excitement was centered around the event’s VIP guest, Princess Máxima, who won major points by attending the runway competition at the Westergasfabriek (Amsterdam’s equivalent to Bryant Park). Winners of the event included Amsterdam’s own Studio Jux and NYC’s ethical fashion it-girl, Carrie Parry.

Carrie Parry’s bold eco separates at The Green Fashion Competition in Amsterdam (photo courtesy of the designer)

Designer Carrie Parry takes the prize at The Green Fashion Competition (photo by Patricia Fewer for Hegedus Style)

Mark Smith of Style.com shared the following comment about having a real live princess at the Green Fashion Competition: “Carlien Helmink of Studio JUX, the fair-trade brand that scooped first prize for its chic collection of Nepalese-produced dresses, said, ‘She (Princess Màxima) was so enthusiastic and even told us that she had expected the jury to choose us as winner.’ New Yorker Carrie Parry, who won the Category Two prize for most promising start-up, was also impressed. ‘Having a real princess witness the unveiling of your designs is pretty much a fairy tale, isn’t it?’”

2011’s Green Fashion Competition winner Elsien Gringhuis kicked off the catwalk event (photo by Patricia Fewer for Hegedus Style)

The stuff that fairy tales are made of just might turn the tide of fast fashion. Eileen Moran of Origin 23 feels that cities like Amsterdam are definitely at the forefront of a green fashion revolution. She shared the following with us after completing the circuit in Europe during the past two weeks, “In the merger of the French Federation’s Pret a Porter and Who’s Next Paris, they decided to eliminate the So Ethic section this season. Many of the designers and buyers who have been going to that show for years to seek out what’s interesting in ethical design, moved to MINT at Modefabriek in Amsterdam or to one of the many shows in Berlin, including the GREENShowroom. I really feel that Amsterdam is going to be the next epicenter for eco and ethical fashion. In speaking with buyers, the press, and consultants, most feel that Paris is now more a place to go for fashion week runway shows as well as The Ethical Fashion Show, but Berlin and Amsterdam are steadily taking over as the destinations for trade shows.”

As a counterpoint, I found it interesting that Brazilian-born Priscilla Camargo, the founder of Hegedus Style in Amsterdam,  felt that only three pieces by each designer on the Green Fashion Competition’s runway lacked a bit of depth in terms of presenting a broad cross-section of eco and ethical fashion expressions. Priscilla commented that she was better able to understand the message of designer collections during her visit to MINT at Modefabriek. That said, she was extremely impressed by the designers’ creative efforts and the enthusiasm of the crowd, but looks forward to the event gaining more applicants from abroad for 2013. You can read more of Priscilla’s coverage via her blog.

Green Fashion Competition finalist Zaida Adriana Goveo Balmaseda’s ‘Calafuria’ collection featuring recycled fiber knitwear (photo by Peter Stigter)

As a knitwear enthusiast, I was excited to see the recycled fiber creations of Green Fashion Competition finalist, Zaida Adriana Goveo Balmaseda – who we previously featured in our article Plying A More Fashionable Fiber Frontier. Zaida’s Calafuria collection pays homage to a natural beach reserve in Tuscany that features rock formations called “tafoni.” These other-worldly forms are mimicked by the “weathering” and “cementation” of materials and surfaces in the designer’s organic pieces. Natural fiber and eco-friendly methods used include hand-spun textiles, scraps or pre-consumer waste gathered from designer studio production floors and textile centers as well as organic cotton that was naturally dyed and batted with PET recycled batting. Dead stock wool was also recycled for  the “aveolo” pieces that were stunningly tinted with natural substances and then hand-embroidered.

Dutch designer Iris van Herpen’s wearable art and ‘escapist’ sculptural couture (photo courtesy of The Wild Magazine)

Three-dimensional experimentation and extreme silhouettes were also featured prominently in the Paris Couture Fashion Week presentation of Dutch designer, Iris Van Herpen. Whether wearable art really leads us down a path of statement piece activism or even multi-purpose fashion, is debatable. That said, many of these creations do allow us to explore metaphors and vocabulary related to organicism and mimicry of nature. Both Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Stockholm and Copenhagen Fashion Week  designers seemed to be sharing this message as well – in combination with thawing out fashion lovers on blustery winter nights.

V Avenue Show Repair at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Stockholm

Gaia at Copenhagen Fashion Week

Stine Ladefoged’s extreme knitwear at Copenhagen Fashion Week

Beckmans College of Design at Copenhagen Fashion Week (photo by Kristian Löveborg)

lead image: Winde Rienstra, photo by Peter Stigter

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Artists are working to create a more fashionable frontier for all.

The blank slate of a new year is as seductive as the lure of a crisp white piece of clothing for one’s mishmash wardrobe. We all crave a fresh start and the promise of renewal, although I have never been one to hastily cast off the old in order to usher in the new. I am just way too practical as an artist who examines and preserves every scrap of fiber for some drafty hole that might present itself unexpectedly. 2012 will instead be a continuation of my ongoing mission to seek out individuals who understand the power of resourcefulness and the collective twining of fiber taking flight.

Naturally dyed-fiber from The Sacred Valley of Peru via Source4Style 

2011 found us exploring therapeutic connections between the heart, the mind, and handcrafting, and the year to come will no doubt be a continued testing ground for how and why we choose to implement DIY strategies as well as having increased access to sustainable fiber and artisan-made textiles via sites like Source4Style. I will be looking to designers, (outsider) artists, storytellers, and even urban gardeners for evidence of why the cultivation of local narratives and subversive craftiness makes good sense. It is at the fringe of these diverse realms where I feel that many sustainable solutions reside.

‘Knitta, Please’ urban fiber installation in Sydney, Australia

Fashion happenings are all good fun but for a huge sector of the population, this is still foreign territory and not so inviting at that. Our day-to-day lives are riddled with break out moments of stylistic genius, but it is is our immediate environs that influence how we look and feel in a sustained manner. I like the idea of casting the net wider to consider ideas related to ‘fashioning self and the environment’ – meaning that, a true understanding of how to map out a lasting fashion sensibility must now include a closer (smarter) examination of self in relation to one’s environment and the resources available.

The ‘Knitta, Please’ handknit bus paves the way for a more fashionable frontier

Women are quite good at this. We know how to make do, mend, and even tie together the loose ends to create safety nets for ourselves and those random beings who dare to cross our path. We also know how to turn an impossible situation into a crazy quilt that warms an entire community of loved ones. I am reminded of artist Magda Sayeg who went from being a single mother on welfare to being an entrepreneurial design maven with her knitted public works (aka guerrilla yarn bombing projects) under the studio name, Knitta, Please. In a recent article on Magda’s work in the Wall Street Journal, one is seduced by the power of crafting a path to a brighter future with a stockpile of pop art yarn and the conviction to subversively adorn just about everything labeled commonplace or inconsequential.

Textile scraps being handspun for knit couture by designer Zaida Adriana Goveo Balmaseda

Similarly, I admire how designer Zaida Adriana Goveo Balmaseda is currently scouring the floors of designer work rooms and studios for scraps of textiles that are being hand spun into knitted runway creations for The Green Fashion Competition at Amsterdam Fashion Week in late January.

 Handspun fiber is knitted and prepped  for the runway by Zaida Adriana Goveo Balmaseda

Zaida shared some of the following sentiments with us regarding her resourceful process and intention:

“Through my work I intend to encourage and engage people to use craft for solutions, and for my current project we are recycling studio textile waste. I discovered the spinning process while researching recycled yarns, and given that I was not really satisfied with my finds, I wanted to work with a fiber that I had complete control over and that would positively impact my surroundings, including the people I know. Spinning yarn can be done with a very simple tool, and many people can participate in the transformation of this raw material. In just one week I taught my grandparents, brother, sister, and mother how to spin. We are creating and sharing stories together, and it has been incredibly rewarding to see everyone cooperating and enthusiastically wanting to learn a new skill. Each skein is unique, just like its spinner and the runway garments that we are knitting as well.”

Recycled fiber forms by Abigail Doan include street flotsam and recycled textiles

In regards to my own work, the challenges that interest me the most are those where seemingly complex situations might be untangled and plied into revitalized objects of texture and hue. In preparation for Vogue Knitting Live‘s curated fiber gallery this next week, I have been creating sculptural fiber forms, some of which include “Plarn” or recycled plastic bag yarn created by a Roma woman named Abibe in Eastern Bulgaria. I was introduced to Abibe by my friend Charity Wright, who is currently working as an educator and sustainable business consultant while in the Peace Corps in Malko Turnovo. This historic border town at the gateway to Turkey has a history of traditional textile weaving as well as organic wool production from the flocks that roam freely in the Strandja Mountains. I welcomed this introduction to Abibe, as she was some one who had never worked with recycled materials for an art installation but had instinctively been repurposing items in her own home for a recycled plastics and crocheted eco-accessory collection. Through the bridge that Charity helped to build with this self-taught artist, my most recent fiber forms have even more layered meaning and a connection to the lifecycle of Abibe’s household.

Artist Abibe of Shau New Light, proudly shows off her recycled accessories in Bulgaria

It is interesting to think about fashion as something that connects us to those fibers that transgress borders, trends, and in turn might even redefine who we are dressing up for. It has been eye-opening for me to create my latest work with input from some one who has never traveled out of Bulgaria or visited my distant home, but definitely shares the same worries and concerns as a mother and artist trying to carve out time for herself. I will be so honored to present this effort to the public in New York City next week.

Judith Scott’s fiber sculpture crafted out of recycled textiles and found broken objects

I am reminded also of the fiber artist Judith Scott who was institutionalized for more than thirty-five years for being profoundly “retarded” with Down Syndrome. It was not until Judith’s twin sister Joyce was finally reunited with her, that the threads of this story unraveled. Celebrated in her later years as being one of the most powerful textile artists of this century, Judith Scott is still considered by some to be an “outsider artist” who operated at the far frontier of contemporary craft. Scott’s sculptural forms, created out of artfully wound scrap fiber and broken objects that had been blatantly dismissed, make her pieces ones that rival many of today’s upcycling expressions. Which begs me to ask, whether the plying of the marginal and disenfranchised with our current ideas about what is fashionable might finally redefine the edginess that we are so desperately hoping to occupy? I say, let’s work to ply a more fashionable frontier for all.

lead image: Jazmin Berakha

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