Closing in on the launch of Fall/Winter 09 collection, A Play of Nonsense, we´re more or less on needles and pins, that´s how much we are looking forward to it!! Inspiration to A Play of Nonsense comes from the imaginary/nonsense literature of the 19-century and its front man Lewis Carroll – a true master of transforming everyday objects into a new and challenging meaning. Airborne guinea pigs and cube-like characters reflect the spirit of Uniforms for the Dedicated; classic wearable clothing that have fallen down the rabbit hole before climbing up in a new fashion.
There are similarities between Lewis Carroll’s conception of the world and the ways we like to look on our work and entrepreneurship in general. To try transiting the imaginary into action is always tempting.
I would go out on a limb and say many of your inspirations are far from the conventional. Do you think your surroundings in Scandinavia have a large role to play in your eclectic and well-conceived themes? I know that in a recent interview I did with Jean Touitou of A.P.C. he really praised the educational system of Northern Europeans.
We are humble, conventionalism is not a top ranked word in our book but we do things that are fancy eclectic and well-conceived! Not sure whether it´s the educational system or Sweden in it self. The over educated Swedish population tend to travel like hell…that got to count for something haha. I would say it’s a need to escape reality and the structure this small country maintains. I think that all involved characters in Uniforms has sought that escape in the huge mental rooms of imagination we seem to share.
There just seems to be some mystic regarding the country as it has drawn almost unanimous praise for its wealth of creativity in the realm of fashion. What is the creative community like in Sweden? Is there anywhere you would compare it to?
Sweden is as Sweden does…I find it hard to draw parallels to another country or region known for fashion and/or design.
However I would for sure describe it as a bit of a melting pot for creative talent. The regions of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmoe (3 biggest cities) equals only about 3 million inhabitants, looking at the amount of brands, design agencies, marketing offices, design studios, musicians, artists and so on you soon realize how extremely dense and dynamic the creative landscape is. The number of people per capita working in any of above fields is amazing. Many of the smaller and/or newer brands has a very open attitude towards each other, we back up each other and try helping one another. Advice is never far fetched. We´re all kids of the design country IKEA and it helped us in shaping and functionality haha.
I think that in the last few years, we’ve seen a great fashion presence emanating from Northern Europe which has created some interest into why the region has been such a fashion hotbed. With fashion being your predominate focus, what sort of difficulties have you had since the start due to a lack of background in the industry?
Sure we had no previous experience in clothing design or production at start (yeah it’s been a long ride) but in the long run I believe the incentives and diverse backgrounds of ours work to our favor. But to focus on the two areas that´s caused a few headaches; I would say learning production from scratch and finding the right partners. Also the fact that our network in terms of buyers and press was extremely limited at first, it´s getting there but so far we feel like we’re a very new brand that has just been introduced.
We´re constantly making mistakes along the way but honestly we wouldn’t be much without them, that´s where progress is born.
