Paris fashion week in March is all about reaching a peak in finding new ways of expressing womenswear. While many are familiar with what goes on on the catwalks, there is a whole new world situated in the showrooms, galleries and tradeshows spread across the center of the city.
For Spring/Summer 2012 BACK by Ann-Sofie Back delivers a collection of monolithic proportions meshed with a typically warped scape of materials. The sheer faux-silks and polyester georgettes clash with natural crisp linens in bright pink and more monotone hues of grey and beige.
Seeming to recall on and referencing dress styles typical of la garçonne (notice the boning details in the tops and shirts) and business power dressing, the collection is controlled by a combination of slouchy, degendered silhouettes and firmer, structured shapes and an ironic emphasis on construction which constitute a women’s apparel line that successfully refreshes classics in a way not before seen in its own niche market. Paradoxes arise as obvious items of glamour and high-end fashion like the patent leather pump stiletto and lacquered belts juxtapose with dresses and garments deprived of naturally luxurious materials and the forced, magpie alluring appeal of the purple polyurethan bag.
The collection will be available through Acolyth this spring.
Acolyth brings its roster of young Finnish design talent to the biannual fashion showcase Finnish Catwalk. Come and take a sneak peek at the new collections by R/H, Saara Lepokorpi, Sasu Kauppi and Minni f. Ronya (pictured below).
Photographer: Juha Mustonen
Model: Anna Nevala / Brand
We are proud to introduce Hærfest, our first addition to the e-store for the upcoming spring/summer 2012 season.
Designed and managed by brothers Daniel and Tim Joo, Hærfest is based in New York where they both work and live. Having previously worked for the likes of Patrik Ervell and Opening Ceremony, the duo now focus on their own label.
Hærfest the word is derived from the Old English term for harvest and as a name for the brand, it stands as a metaphor for celebrating the fruits of labor. “We wanted it to be a concept that could be universally understood. As a company, we believe that hard work, using the right materials and attention to detail are the elements involved in creating a piece that you know has been crafted with pride,” Dan and Tim say.
What stands Hærfest apart from so many others is their undertaking to create what they themselves call ”deceptively simple modern classics.” This is due to a great attention to detail and their sensitivity for using quality materials and well-balanced proportions in a way that at the same time makes the product feel and look the part of a designer bag but also appeals to a more understated and urban sensibility.
Hærfest emphasize the importance of craftsmanship in correlation with design throughout their work as well as an ambition to create modern yet timeless pieces. “The strong belief we have about minimalism is that it can stand the test of time. It’s a universally understood aesthetic that doesn’t require branding to command appeal. We hope that even after 10 years from now they would appeal in the same light; still being modern and relevant, similar to great architecture and product design,” the designers say.
photos by Hærfest and Acolyth
While the past few weeks have been quiet on the blog front, Acolyth couldn’t be further from slipping into entropy. With so many things dragging their feet in the contemporary world, it might not come as a surprise to many that of late it has required more tactile approaches for this body of e-commerce entrepreneurship to begin pulling its own weight.
Without much further ado, I give you the first glimpse into the womenswear collection by Nikolaj Nielsen of Won Hundred.
”Animate Composition” is namely based on the idea of boundless body motion and how it comes through in contemporary dance and how bodywear relates to it. The collection consists of a mixture of references of loose silhouettes, drapy forms and a variety of menswear influences (many typical of the 80’s), that come across in looks and pieces that are unfathomably cool and yet recognisable at the same time.
How the collection is presented and styled in the lookbook makes it all come down to a strictly modern collection, which still has an easy-breezy effortless, wearable feel to it.
”Beautiful clothes = beautiful collection” might come as a given way too often when you think of aetherial womenswear collections with pieces in fluid materials and looks that ooze an esoteric ideal of chic, but Won Hundred’s less-is-more approach makes it seem unique and uniquely beautiful in its own right.
An absolute favorite of Acolyth, Boston shirt will be available in white silk (worn by model in the first shot of the post).
The catalogue opens up the universe behind the collection, which – like the clothes – is based on compositions of mainly singular forms and shapes.
The “Rise” shoes should be on the shortlist for absolute summer must-haves.
The shoes are presented in shots that resemble still-lifes. I was especially enamoured by the shoes in the collection, foremost the chunky rubber heel Sensa. Sadly the item failed to go into production in the end.
Won Hundred is available through Acolyth this coming spring.
Won Hundred lookbook Art direction and Graphic design: Femmes regionales
Photography: Sacha Maric
Stylist: Tekla Knaust / New Blood Agency
Models: Svetlana Zakharova / Premiere Model Management, Ida W / Scoop Models
The year 2011 has passed and even though our e-store has only been open for a few months, it has been in development for a full year now. Acolyth wants to thank all our customers, supporters and co-workers for a great year and a great start.
Pictured below is a short preview of some of the products by Puma by Hussein Chalayan and new brands Won Hundred and Kevin Azzopardi the e-store will stock for S/S 2012. All of the shots were taken during Copenhagen fashion week in August.
All in all, the S/S 2012 line-up of designers and brands for Acolyth is:
Back by Ann-Sofie Back
b Store
Christopher Shannon
Cinzia Araia
Closed
Daniel Palillo
David Andersen
Hærfest
Johan Ku
Joomi Lim
Kevin Azzopardi
Kzeniya
Minni f. Ronya
Puma by Hussein Chalayan
R/H
Saara Lepokorpi
Sasu Kauppi
Stephan Schneider
Won Hundred
Yvonne Koné
More info about the upcoming S/S12 season and the designers coming soon.
The staff at Acolyth has been shooting and preparing new content for the e-store. We had a wonderful day at the studio yesterday with new products and fresh, new faces.
More to come soon.
Dear readers of the blog,
the first Acolyth Popup Store took place in Helsinki between 27th and 30th of October.
The Art Nouveau style building the store was set up in on Kalevankatu is situated at the heart of the Finnish capital, with many iconic landmarks right next door, the historic restaurant Kosmos and hotel Torni just to name a few. A disused office space located on the 2nd floor of the building was converted into a shop in a matter of days and hours. Interior and furniture designers Juri Karinen and Anna Rantala tapped into what they felt was the spirit and aesthete of Acolyth and the space was transformed into what I feel is a rightful embodiment of the e-store.
The interior designers resoluted into making everything re-usable: the state of the art racks and displays custom-made from hardware materials like concrete and steel were executed in a way so that they could be easily disassembled and assembled again later. In forging these items the designers created the very core of the Popup Store: a perfect presentation for pieces from our collections but also an application that can be easily transported to and set-up in new locations.
A lot of new pieces from new designers were presented in the Popup Store, one of them being Stephan Scheider with his women’s dresses and men’s shirts and scarfs.
The hallway of the store was a place where visitors could go online to see the e-store but view the jewellery displays.
The theme of concrete and steel was present in the jewellery displays as well. All of them were custom-made for the Popup Store.
Danielle Vroemen jewellery on display in the store.
Back jade shirt on a rail in the women’s room.
Womenswear collections on a rack in the popup: R/H and Minni f. Ronya.
While only a temporary store, in my opinion Acolyth Popup Store was a success as an event that lead into many gatherings of like-minded people but also attracted a lot of new people into our e-store. A great thank you to everyone who participated in setting up the popup store: Juri, Anna, Otto, Kari, Tynius and Merja, but also to everyone who stopped by.
Acolyth is pleased to announce Saara Lepokorpi as one of the new Finnish talents the store will stock for Spring-Summer 2012 season. See the collection line-up here.
Having first looked through the Saara Lepokorpi collection in a multi-label showroom during Paris fashion week and then later in her spacious loft apartment and studio overlooking the perfectly set up for winter Helsinki landscape, the latter inspection of the clothes left me with more of an everlasting impression. Somehow the fusion of jewel tones, earthy browns, robust textures and floaty materials of ”Rise from the ground, tread on coal” transcended in the milieu of Lepokorpi’s Fenno-Brutalist palazzo where the collection lookbook images have been rightfully shot in as well.
The first thing that strikes you about Lepokorpi’s new work is that it plays on the idea of repetition. Like tile upon tile, emblematic of the Industrial Age, there are layers upon layers of materials in various techniques ranging from hand-woven fabrics to fabrics that have been digitally printed with photographic patterns of woven rugs. Lepokorpi’s wonderfully crafted materials seem to be in a twisted symbiosis: much like many images of the Digital Era only visible through screens, the prints contain a two-dimensional image of a woven rug executed on plain-weave cotton material but very little knowledge about the tradition that goes into making one. Side by side, the contradiction between the two underlines the question of which one is more perishable – tradition or technological achievement.
Another hand-crafted element in the collection comes in the form of leather garments where strips of leather have been bound together to create ornament-like vests and wrap skirts. Whether these clothes represent the idea of an armour or a way to expose the body is peripheral to the fact how time-consumingly they have been crafted by hand. Although the pieces are futuristic in appearance, the idea of their manufacture brings a historic undertone into the concept and takes the collection on a paradoxical time-leap to pre-industrial ages, when the garment industry didn’t have the benefits of modern machinery. While ”Rise from the ground, tread on coal” has many industrial products, it highlights the importance of everyday garments as rare pieces of craft. In this way Lepokorpi adheres to the wishes of a clientele that still values such pieces, a concept that doesn’t easily fit in with the staple role of the designer as solely a purveyor of industrial products or more couture-like evening wear or even both. Instead essential to the two-fold collection is how slow fashion it is, and at the same time, how fashion forward. It goes without saying that instead of going back in time, Lepokorpi might just be taking steps into a totally new direction.
Influences range from ethnic to uniform.
A perfecto reference joins with the languid silhouette of a wrap skirt.
Primitivism steps in in the lines of a dress similar to sari.
photos by Liisa Valonen
Mistral Blazer. Corona dress. Hurricane Skirt…
Flipping through the Minni f. Ronya lookbook for spring-summer 2012 makes one feel transported enough to be able to forget about these rainy autumn days.
Spring-summer 2012 is the second collection by the designers Minni Suova and Anne Törnroos. In many ways it is a continuation of their debut collection – the duo still rely on their winning formula of mixing contemporary sportswear elements with tailored menswear shapes – but there a lot of new ideas brought out as well.
The inspiration behind the collection draws from the feeling of airiness, happiness and freedom and flying kites. The colors are mainly pale hues of dust, gold and sand, with dashes of gray and grayish indigo and a vibrant mix of blues and reds thrown in in the form of the printed patterns by Santtu Mustonen, a Helsinki-based illustrator the duo collaborated with on this collection. The silhouette shifts slightly from being as delicate and classic as in the autumn-winter 2011 collection and into a bolder direction – one of the Intellectual Tomboy the label introduces in their manifesto. The light, high-quality materials transform the otherwise boyish shapes and tough lines and make them seem suitable for many a female dresser: the more nonchalant type as well as the one who likes to dress up.
There is a great attention to detail throughout the collection and most of the studs, zippers, eyelets and rings have been designed and custom-made for the collection. Sports couture was a term fashion journalists incoherently brought up when writing about many of the womenswear collections for Spring-Summer 2012. Even though it can’t be directly applied to Minni f. Ronya’s collection you can’t help but think that the label has uplifted to a new level in their quest for sophisticated functionality. Who ever wears pieces from this easy breezy collection will definitely have many good spring and summer days circa 2012.
Ribbons undone. The entrancing print by Santtu Mustonen on a canvas bag.
Joonas Saari is a designer and the creator and founder of Acolyth e-store. Acolyth Blog gives you insight of everything that revolves around the e-store and its designers but also of fashion in general.
