London FTM showcases Swedish Fashion

The London Fashion and Textile Museum is currently exhibition an exhibition called Swedish Fashion: Exploring A New Identity. The exhibition showcases a new wave of Swedish design talent, with the work of thirteen fashion and jewellery designers who challenge the stereotypical picture of Swedish fashion as blonde, functional and minimal.

Since the late 1990s there has been a growing sense of a new guard emerging - putting the country on the map with a burgeoning number of fashion labels and designers.

Created by the Swedish Institute and specially enhanced and adapted for the FTM, this exhibition showcases the bold, the avant-garde and the surprising. As well as some stunning garments from each of the designers the FTM will also be showcasing work from some of the best jewellery designer/makers in Sweden who are creating exciting, vivid pieces that challenge traditional notions of jewellery and craft. The pieces on display will highlight the exceptional work that is being produced in this field.

Perhaps the most well-known of this new band of fashion designers in the exhibition is Ann-Sofie Back who is based in London and regularly shows her work at London Fashion Week. Her garments often create confusion about what clothes should look like – shirts that become skirts, or collars and sleeves that have moved about and lost their original function.

Her work is accompanied by other equally stunning designers such as Sandra Backlund who elevates knitwear to an art-form with her sculptural techniques; Helena Hörstedt whose ingenious technical designs which against the background of the Swedish passion for simple, basic clothing stand out like gigantic curvaceous exclamation marks and the voluminous, loose-fitting and draped garments of Nakkna have helped alter the silhouette of Stockholm’s young fashion avant-gardists.

This exhibition will challenge every pre-conception you may have about Sweden as well as introduce you to some new designers of the future. The exhibition runs at the FTM from Friday 6th February until Sunday 17th May 2009.

For further information go to www.ftmlondon.org

Image: Swedish design by Peter Farago