Johanna Pihl Breaks Open Swedish Fashion Week
The 13th installment of Stockholm’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week kicks off this Sunday, Jan. 30, in what promises to be a bit of cultural sunshine in the Nordic city, where right now, temperatures are low and the sun rarely shines. The three-day event will see a line-up of Sweden’s best designers presenting their Fall 2012 collections. Audiences will be introduced to rising design star Johanna Pihl.
Pihl was awarded the chance to show her collection after winning the country’s Young Fashion Industry Award for emerging designers this past August. The honor led to the launch of her own label that she says caters to “forward-thinking women in everyday life.” The collection mixes edgy design with elegant fabric, Pihl says: “It was born from the relationship between Rococo and our modern times.” Her creations comprise leather skirts with curious cuts, tie-died silk dresses, skinny trousers reminiscent of Roman columns, and woven tops and jackets with a futurist feel. Her pattern choices and color palatte, which are eminently Swedish in neutral shades of whites, blacks, creams, and greys, are inspired by the interiors of 18th-century royal palaces.
It was just last year that Pihl, who interned for revered Swedish labels House of Dagmar and Ann-Sofie Back, graduated with honors from London College of Fashion. “The decision I made after I won YFI, to start up my own label, was something that was always my plan to do in the future and now I felt it was a great time to do it,” Pihl says. “To my delight, it was sooner than I thought.”
From what we’ve seen from her so far, the young designer proves to be moving beyond the status quo of the country’s safe, sleek aesthetic, confidently clothing her customers in outfits that break the mold in both materiality and form. On Tuesday, Jan. 31 during her Fashion Week debut, we’ll see this refreshing perspective come to life. For many, this highly anticipated collection can’t come soon enough.
