Designers Saif Bakir and Emma Hedlund have taken sleight of hand to a new level in their 2016 spring and summer ‘Genuine Fake’ collections for menswear label, CMMN SWDN. To do so, they delved inside the world of confidence tricksters, exploring the nature of con artists and the art of deception and juxtaposing them with the current fashion world.

The collection in its entirety is a theoretical approach to showcasing a sense of self-awareness and reflection, something that is rare in a world where good shoes and a good bag can be a substitute for a good personality. The designers have first-hand experience of the top echelons of the fashion industry – they first met in 2004 while studying at prestigious schools Central Saint Martins and London College of Fashion, before going on to work at Wooyoungmi, COS and then Kanye West in Paris. It was there that the duo worked with the notorious musician in setting up his Paris studio, before departing to form their own label.

CMMN is a line of top-quality staples infused with very progressive designs that call to the independent, millennial, internet-confident individual who will most likely be the most original in a room, at least in terms of how they are dressed.

The collections were inspired by questions such as is fashion art or commerce? Is it art or just common clothes? If fashion is art, then is all fashion art or just some of it? Where do you draw the line?

The garments put their theories to test on distorted high-definition heat transfer prints recreated from famous paintings from artists such as Nicolas de Staël, Albert Gleizes and Tayeb Mehta, as well as their own mixed media screen printings and collages out of which they have created their own ‘Genuine Fake’ art.