The "Elle Style Awards – New Nordic Talent of the Year 2014" competition recently opened. The event, organised in collaboration with MUUSE and including over 100 designers, hopes to find a new design star hailing from the Nordic regions.
The 25 designers receiving the most votes from the public (voting ends on 24th January 2014) will advance to the semi-finals and be judged by a panel of Elle's Scandinavian fashion editors, who will then select three finalists. The final winner will be announced this Spring. Among the designers included there is also Connie Riiser Berge with her "Time Intertwined" collection.
Berge, from Norway, graduated last summer from Esmod Oslo winning with "Time Intertwined" the Fashion of the Week design award, assigned by the Norwegian Fashion Forum. The collection was inspired by the process of mummification, interpreted in a sculptural and architectural key.
It's quite interesting how certain details, including the bondage-like strips that the designer opted to sculpt rather than wrap around the body, remind a bit of modern, dramatic yet refined constructions such as the Bishop Edward King Chapel designed by Níall McLaughlin Architects at the Ripon College campus, a theological centre on the edge of the village of Cuddesdon, in the Oxfordshire countryside.
Part of the inspiration for the elliptical structure of the building – shortlisted for the 2013 Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba) Stirling Prize – was a boat and in particular a play on the Latin words "navis", boat, and "nave", the main body of a church, also referncing the term "navel", hinting at the umbilical cord and therefore at the place of origin.
The most striking features of this building are the calming, soothing and minimalist (and very nordic in a way) sweeping wooden arches that rise up to the ceiling intersecting and creating a sort of traditional Gothic layered portal structure.
In some of her designs, Connie Riiser Berge intersects strips of materials and fabrics, creating nodal points that call to mind the filigree vault of the chapel; in other cases her materials of choice create interplays of light and space.
One futuristic skirt suit from the collection looks as if it were formed by V-shaped columns creating complex structures along the sleeves. Connie Riiser Berge will be at the Who's Next exhibition in Paris this February and you can vote for her by clicking here.
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
Related articles
