Going on a Holiday: Part III

Road-burger…. not exactly the elegant name that illustrates the clothes that ensue in the following pictures but this is how my botched up pronounciation of Swedish brand Rodebjer kept on coming out as.  This resulted in making every Swedish person giggle at me and me craving a burger every time I was thinking of the presentation that was on the last day of Stockholm Fashion Week.  It was off-schedule but fortunately for a tip-off from Madelaine from Bon magazine, I made it to the beautiful setting of Kastellholmen, a wee island that fitted the overall vibe of the presentation perfectly.

Carin Rodebjer has had a break from designing her label as she had a baby so this was a bit of a 'Welcome Back' show that got a rousing reaction.  The whole presentation was also accompanied in person by Rodebjer herself, who explained each outfit (something that the designers at Hope also did last season… a brilliant way of making showgoers 'get' the clothing)… sadly it was all in Swedish and I could only chuckle along awkwardly whenever a ha-ha joke was made.  Rodebjer took a trip to Fisher Island near South Beach in Miami for her S/S 11 collection reflected in the clean lines that are relaxed rather than strict.  When people say 'resort' and I immediately think of yachts, espadrilles and the perfect Breton top, Rodebjer's collection is sort of the amped up sartorial personification of that word.  Some of it is nautical in feel, but subtly so.  Patterns are controlled and neat (even the confetti print looks extremely meticulous and tidy).  There's a loose and relaxed fit to everything that screams holiday packing but it's also a counteracted by jewellery that says to me that these clothes don't need to be restricted to some ra-ra beach resort…

Despite the connotations with the sort of uppercrust 'summering' locations that I would never find myself going to (shoot me if I ever start using 'summer' as though it were a verb…), there were lots of little touches to the collection that took the clothes beyond chi-chi classic holiday pieces.. the cut of a cape, the oversized hats that crossover with a visor, the tinsel-like texture worked into sweaters and dresses…

I'm also loving the fit of some of the jackets and shirts where they could almost be conceived as pyjamas…

The jewellery like I said added some chunky weight to the lightness of some of the clothes…

Let these hats not be chucked into the "Oh we're not going to produce these…" file… surely this is the practical measure to avoiding a hot head in the heat whilst also shielding eyes/face from the sun?

My final holiday destination very naturally came through the sort of image searches on Google that bring up the oddest of imagery.  Nhu Duong, again was another off-schedule gem that I was MIGHTY glad I went to.  Sometimes the confines of official venues can get you into doldrums and whilst Duong confessed that she wasn't quite ready for the full humdrum of a show, nevertheless it was good to get her on my radar.  Nhu Duong is Vietnamese by origin (daughter of a kung fu master and a tailoress!) and moved to Sweden at a young age.  A graduate of Beckmans, she was the first to win the Mercedes Benz Young Fashion Industry award and whilst she dabbled with hardware and deliberately artisanal ways of working, her aesthetic has moved on (though for me, it's a first introduction…) and for S/S 11, she's gone down the parth of digital printing.

Yes, it's a heaving bandwagon at the moment but behind what look to be straightforward photographic prints is another story…. Duong was inspired by the sort amateur holiday snaps found on the internet which due to their low compression become slightly distorted and pixelated when enlarged.  When these are printed onto silk fronts of dresses that are contrasted with neoprene backs, you get something quite beautiful.  There's no denying the reminders of obvious print imagists such as Christopher Kane or Krystof Strozyna and numerous other designers of course but I like that Duong has tapped into the naffness of the WWW to come up with something quite beautiful.  Like odd images floating around on Tripod/Geocities DIY websites that still sometimes come up on the internet and just like that you remember all of that and suddenly feel a wee bit scared as to where this internet thingy ma jig will go in the next decade or so…