Club - a perfect design brief for the fashion designer
Can you express the look and feel of a furniture fabric by creating designer clothes with it? If you ask the designer, Josefin Wiklund,
the answer is a definite ‘yes’.
Perhaps you’ve seen the pictures from the launch of our spring collection for 2021, where the fabric collection was given a new kind of expression in the form of designer clothes?
Club is a series of furniture fabrics forming a fusion of Swedish textile tradition and classical check patterns from around the world. A meeting of tradition and the future, where textiles meets technology. This was the brief that Josefin Wiklund, a clothing designer at the School of Textiles in Borås, received when she accepted the assignment to create clothing for both men and women with Club as a starting point.
Josefin Wiklund previously worked as a design assistant at Filippa K in Stockholm and is now studying Fashion Design at Master level at The Swedish School of Textiles.
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‘It really was a very fun challenge, working with heavier upholstery fabrics that have a different type of drape and textile behaviour from traditional apparel fabrics. This brief required a different mindset compared to the usual design process. The concept of the collection focuses on traditional Scandinavian textiles interpreted in a new way. I wanted an element of tradition to permeate throughout the collection and researched stylish, classic tailoring as my inspiration. I wanted the clothes to represent and emphasise the different characteristics of the materials. For example, I wanted to minimise the cut lines and seams in the heavier, woven fabrics to accentuate the textile’s quality and its unique drape in the best way. That’s where the whole design process began’, says Josefin Wiklund.
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What does that mean in practice?
‘Amongst other things, I wanted the fabric to stay as untouched as possible, for example not cutting it up or incorporating too many seams. I draped the dress I designed in the Sway series using several layers to simulate the natural drape of a curtain. It was important that the clothes captured the characteristic drape of a curtain fabric and the flexible consistency of furniture fabric’.
Another thing that Josefin Wiklund wanted to highlight was the technical aspect of Ludvig Svensson’s design process.
‘There’s an interplay between technology and design in everything Svensson does. I wanted to incorporate the Svensson approach to technology as an influence upon the collection and I saw an opportunity to work with software within the design process. Designing with software means that the complete garment is created digitally as a 3D prototype before the scissors have even touched the fabric. This way of working gives a good overview of what the finished garment will look like, which in turn minimises fabric waste during the seaming and prototype stages. I think that sits well with what Svensson is all about’.
Josefin Wiklund worked in close partnership with the photo studio’s stylist during the process. From the beginning, they had a vision of how they wanted the clothes and the furniture to blend with each other.
‘I was really pleased when I got to see the final result. The photography was really powerful and gave the clothes, the furniture, and the fabrics a deeper meaning and interaction. The feedback I’ve had about the project has been really wonderful and I really feel that it was a team effort from idea to finished result. I’m glad that Svensson dared to make this step and give a young fashion designer such a fantastic opportunity to create clothes this way’.
