I enter Beckmans College of Design on what could be described as the first proper day of spring, and the students are working away on their respective graduation projects and collections, trying to make their deadline which is still some weeks away.
The school has fostered creativity for 75 years and strives to be “a meeting point for creative and artistic progress with significant relevance for society and its development”. I’m trying to get a glimpse of that creative and artistic progress so I’ve turned to the graduating students for a look at their projects and collections, which will be exhibited and shown on the catwalk in May.
Madeleine Nelson is currently in her third year in fine arts with a major in product design. She’s one of the students that seem to be furthest along in her process for her graduation project. “I have the old monk chair from the 1500s as my starting point. It consists of a symmetrical triangular seat, with its top pointing inwards, which made it unusable for nuns and women who have got broader hips. What I have done is to have the top pointing the other way so it fits everyone. A democratic design”, she explains about her chair, Nunna, that can also be reconstructed into a stool.
How important is the graduation project compared to the other projects you have done prior?
It’s important, you want to show your style and who you are. It’s something you can build on when you’ve graduated and hopefully this project should lead to work opportunities for graduating designers.
If we rewind three or so years, what inspired you to apply for Beckmans in the first place?
I was studying architecture at KTH but realised that it was only when the project deadline had passed that the fun began. When you could begin to fill space with furniture and zoom in on the details. Now I’ve just started a design studio with my sister where we will look to do the whole process.
Melinda Urbansdotter questions why magazines catering for design and interior design all look the same, why they all target the consumer and not designers. As part of her degree project she has made her own publication. “I have exemplified how a magazine CAN look. Something that would be of interest to people within the business and people with a keen interest. The magazines available today all represent a good-looking object. A finished product. My publications is a counter-reaction. It’s not images of your usual well-styled living room. Instead I find inspiration in fashion publications, with great imagery that feels inspiring. I suppose it’s just not focused on commerce.”
How has Beckmans shaped, encouraged or even challenged your creativity?
MN: For me it’s been that from an early stage you can anchor your work in the real world. So you can test your wings.
MU: On a personal level they encourage you to be who you are. I have had the chance to try and figure out who I am. I mean when it comes to my artistic idiom. Combining the chance to have your work anchored in the real world plus that personal voyage is optimal.
The students in Product and Interior Design work within a vast array of subcategories. Even if you don’t work with same things do you feel the classmates are a helpful resource for you?
MU: Absolutely, and perhaps especially so since we’re active in different areas. That’s when people can add something to your project. You just go to the people you know has that certain skill-set you’re looking for.
For the finals, the fashion students have taken their work in a vast array of directions – dreamward to name but one. Their annual graduation show is a highly-anticipated event in the fashion calendar, and their work is a way to get a sense of where Swedish design is headed. I meet up with Dat Danh and Marie Isacsson.
How important is this final collection for someone graduating from Beckmans?
D: It’s important. It’s a big part of your time here and it’s a bigger collection than you have done previously. And by this stage you have become a lot better at what you do. Plus after I have graduated, what people will want to see is my latest work. So this will be a heavy presence in my portfolio.
And here with a month to go, how far into the process have you come?
D: Probably not even half way…
M: We have just began producing the real garments. I have only made the gloves so far.
Do you have any specific criteria that needs to fulfilled or do you have free reign to do what you wish?
D: We have complete free reign. But it’s limited to the setup of the course obviously.
M: Yes, there’s a certain amount of looks that are to be displayed, and it’s going to be shown on the catwalk, but when it comes to the actual concept we can do what we want. We have done two collections before but at that stage there were more restrictions.
Tell me about your collection and process.
D: I usually work on a very personal level, very concept based. I’m looking at things like poverty around the world, the Vietnam War and why I’m so lucky to be able to do whatever I want here in Sweden when my relatives for several generations before me went through so much trouble.
I want to look into my very existence. What choices were made by my ancestors that allow me to have the opportunities I have today. I have had three different eras as my starting point. The East Asian Dynasties, secondly my father’s escape from Vietnam and thirdly my upbringing in the suburbs in Malmö where the only people you could look up to were gang members. I had to escape from that bubble. My parents had gone through so much to provide opportunity for me so I had to take care of that. And to be a role model for my younger brothers.
In my collection I take street fashion from Malmö – the jeans jacket, the bomber jacket, the hoodie and sweatpants. From my father’s time in Vietnam I take the military uniform and the rain jacket representing when he escaped through the rainforest. Plus the body armour and look of the monks from the era of the Chinese dynasties.
And when I build my lineup – I have seven looks in the collection – it tells a story.
M: I have gaming culture as my starting point. I’m trying to merge gaming and fashion to include fashion for the characters in the game. I think it’s interesting with social identity and how it becomes a characterisation of the society we live in. It’s a way to materialise the time we live in.
But when it comes to games it doesn’t follow that blueprint. It’s more about exaggeration and you cannot see our society represented. The prejudice was of course that female characters in games are objectified. When they are at all involved they are either sidekicks or objects.
My collection represents a uniform for a whole team in a game like Counterstrike. I have gone in and deconstructed the military uniform and I have six looks, a female and a male look with desert camouflage, city camouflage and tropical camouflage respectively.
To get a stronger link to the real world, and not just have the virtual fashion, I have also modified the anti-face camouflage – to avoid face recognition – into anti-face jewellery.
The Beckman’s Fashion Graduation Show takes place on May 15 at Kulturhuset. The Graduation Exhibition is on display May 17-22 at Beckman’s College of Design.
Photo: Beckmans in collaboration with Stureoptikern. Photo: Erik Pousette. Design Kaori Agematsu, Jannica Hagfors and Erik Olsson
