avant-garde

If I had a camera, I’d show you my room in the state of war between the empty floor space and magazines. I must report that the magazines are taking over and soon will start crawling up the walls. There’s Blend, Encens, Paper Planes, Bon, Under Influence, Metal, FAT, Double, ‘Sup Magazine, Qvest, Mint, Acne Paper and even Burda (!). I had no idea that publishing a magazine is so hard and now I’ve got way more respect for publications than ever before. So no more shoving my beloved Metal into the pile of the bathroom reading material – I’ll keep them all on pretty shelves and talk to them as I do the dust.
But of course, when there’s so much inspiration all around I can’t help but to make some autumn wishlists and mental collages of what I would wear if I were to live in one or the other photoshoot. I am still inspired by Finland as a concept and if I were to make a general picture of such concept I could name-drop a few non-Finnish brands and shape a pretty clear overview of what is the most avant-garde in fashion now. So here’s my selection:


Bless
A brand that functions in editions, not seasons. Bless makes unisex, interactive products and performances, publishes books and plays with a modern definition of what is a consumer product and what is a conceptual item.

Fabrics Interseason
Besides lecturing at universities and creating site-specific installations the duo of Austrian origin creates witty and timeless pieces that balance between conceptual design and consumer design just in the same way as BLESS does, yet their work is much more tactile and poetic.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race
Once again editions – no seasonal collections. Each new edition is revolving around a theme targeting a certain contemporary topic. They make clothes and accessories as a contemplation upon the modern concepts in fashion. Their product is luxurious but revised and reworked to reflect upon the fashion elements of nowadays.

Bernhard Willhelm
He has never failed to create a piece of clothing that will stop you and make you reconsider the entire understanding of fashion as an art form. From pop-up stores in Japan conceived out of cardboard to Camper sandals - Bernhard Willhelm’s work is the zeitgeist of globalization in fashion. He is the one who forced the fashion wheel to spin slower at the turn of the millennium, yet not forgetting the celebrities and collaborations.

Complex Geometries
This is a relatively young brand of Montreal. Complex Geometries functions as a normal fashion brand on the surface, but look deeper and you’ll see the unisex aspect of the designs, the multiple ways of wearing the garment and how designs carry on from one season to another slowly evolving and growing into the wardrobe of the customer suiting every occasion.

Harputs Own
…is from the US of A. this evolutionary brand has grown out of an adidas store which later became Harputs Market, which consequentially launched the brand. They create timeless pieces out of the dead stock fabrics. The design focus is the multitude of ways in which one garment can be worn, thus denying the speed at which the seasonal wear changes and giving the quality items a proper longterm place in your wardrobe.

No Editions
This is one of the most challenging concepts in modern retail. No Editions created unique garments which shall never be reproduced in repetition. Each style is produced only once with the serial number and an identification code. When the item is purchased it still remains visible on the website as a part of online archive. They use only eco-friendly inks for printing on fabrics. The whole No Editions experience is a totally new fashion experience of our post-post-post-modern age where we become a part of a greater collective conscience and our fashion taste can be traced converted into a serial number.

Pelican Avenue
Pelican Avenue was founded in 2004 by Carolin Lerch, a graduate from the Antwerp academy of fashion and former assistant of designer Bernhard Willhelm. This brand walks in opposition to the constantly changing trends and the destructive attitude of hypes. The converging path of personal reflections, non-fashion media such as video and performance lead to the final product which still functions as a wearable garment, the presentation of which goes hand-in-hand with Pelican Video – a multimedia project, in cooperation with multi media artist Michiel Helbig.

Cosmic Wonder Light Source
Is of Yukinori Maeda’s mastermind who creates Cosmic Wonder Free Press – a magazine which functions as a collection of ideas, catalogue of performances and a key to the lock that are the Cosmic Wonder garments. The functional clothes are designed and presented in performances. Their timeless designs embody an integrity and intellectualism that place it outside fashion, outside trend.