As I wrote earlier, next season will be the first whole shoe collection designed by talented Anna Werner. I took a chat with Anna about the collections.

Anna actually started studying traditional fashion at Beckmans together with Maria Östblom (designer of the Women’s Label), but somewhat changed course after she graduated.

”I started getting really into bags, accessories, and shoes. I guess it’s the 3 dimensional shapes that’s fun,” she told while we talked about the collections.

The first whole women’s line by Anna is marked by its simplicity, with clean cuts and hidden stitching. Open surfaces, colour combinations and volume, mark the details instead. The line has a lot of something that Anna describes as ”dry surfaces”, meaning the dry texture of the leather.

The men’s shoe line has an eclectic mix, but is marked by its classic theme with (as I reported before) handmade Italian shoes.

Here are some of the highlights from the collections that will hit the stores in the spring:

Here are some of the mens shoes, all hand-made in Italy:

The intellectual rebel has been the main inspiration for the spring and summer collection 2009, from Greta Garbo in the 30´s to Bob Dylan in the 60´s and the Blitz Kids in the 80´s. Read more

Chinos has been quite popular the last couple of seasons. According to the legend Sir Harry Lumsden, a commander of a British regiment stationed in India, got the idea in 1848 to dye all of his soldiers white uniforms with a native plant called Mazari. The new Khaki pants were more suitable in battle, since they gave a better camouflage in the local terrain. The name Khaki comes from the Hindu word for “dust”.

Later on when American troops situated in the Philippines (during the Spanish-American war) bought Chinese made khakis, they got the name chinos (Chino is the Spanish word for Chinese).

I can recommend two pairs of chinos, one for men and one for women, which are now in stores. The men’s model is called Stucker, and is made in classic cotton. They are slightly tapered, and got two stitched down pleats. Together with slanting front pockets and two jetted back pockets with a small double-jetted pen pocket underneath.

The women’s model is called Rut , made in italian coated cotton, which has a high-waist and tapered legs. Just like Stucker, they have two stitched down pleats and slanting front pockets.
Both models come in black and beige.

Picture the characters from Kurosawa´s “Seven Samurais” fighting, with musical
instruments instead of swords, in a world of digital samurais and disco geishas.

That’s what the designers did while working on next season’s collection.
Inspired by things such as the Spark´s cover for their 1974 album
“Kimono My House”, the collection fuses the traditional Japan with the contemporary.

Talking with designer Sofia Jönsson, she explained that it’s a reverse Scandinavian look-
going away from the narrow fits and minimalist expressions to a more confident and
colourful jargon, where the Japanese inspiration has been extremely important.

The collection pops up in stores at the end of July.

A while ago, the design team for the women’s label went to see an exhibition by Swedish artist Mamma Karin Andersson and got caught up in a discussion about one of the paintings, “About a Girl”. The piece shows a group of women sitting around a dinner table.
 
Designers Maria Östblom and Erika Ekelund began wondering what the women were talking about, and who they were. They both thought that it had to be set in a Parisian apartment in Paris and  It developed a fantasy situation about the room and the dinner guests. After a while they felt that their associations with the painting was a natural starting point for next season’s  autumn collection.

They later added  Japan as an inspiration, with its low key and elegant expressions, and ended up with a French-Japanese fusion. The collection features key pieces such as pencil skirts, silk blouses and large knitted cardigans.

See the final result when the collection hits the stores at the end of July.

In Jules Verne’s classic 1873 novel, Phileas Fogg went around the world in 80 days. Mr Fogg’s modern counterpart is Richard Branson, and his new project “Virgin Galactic” lets people experience the world from space in just two hours and 30 minutes. No – this is not a piece of modern fiction. This will start happening in 2009, and tickets are now up for sale.

Speaking with Ronnie McDonald (the designer for the Black Label) about next autumn’s collection, he imagined the traveller of tomorrow as a muse for the collection, taking inspiration from both backpackers as well as the first-class traveller.

He told me that nowadays, when fantasies like sub-orbital tourism come true, it’s inspiring to work with a fashion label with 100 years of history. It gives you the possibility to use tradition and put it in a modern context, which is what he loves about Tiger of Sweden.

The collection will arrive in stores alongside the Silver Label collection at the end of July.

Interested in space travel? Visit www.virgingalactic.com for further details.

Getting inspiration from New York isn’t hard. Almost everyone you know who’s been there absolutely loves it. You could say it´s probably the only city in the world that actually lives up to how you imagine it to be.

A case in point:

For next autumn’s Silver Label collection, Ronnie McDonald (one of our menswear designers) has chosen the American sculptor Richard Serra as the main inspiration for the collection.

During the autumn, MOMA in New York exhibited Serra’s collected works dedicating the entire second floor to his enormous installations. The exhibition was quite overwhelming. (Those of you who visited the exhibition will know what I mean).

While studying, Serra worked part-time at steel mills which explains his minimalist constructions made from large rolls and sheets of metal.

Designer Ronnie told me that the collection is about playing with the silhouette by mixing proportional layering – deconstructed suits in newly developed fabrics and textures.

Some highlights from the collection are the clean-cut black suits, reworked biker jackets and featherweight jackets.

The collection will hit the stores in late July.