Featured Designer: Louise Lyngh Bjerregaard

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR WORK?

Experimental, serious and free.

HOW WOULD YOU DEFINE UPCYCLING AND HOW DOES IT COME INTO PLAY IN YOUR WORK?

Upcycling has the potential to be the new luxury. Upcycling for me is reworking existing garments, working with deadstock and scrap yarns. Almost no one piece is exactly the same. Otherwise the items are produced in limited editions. For example, the knitted Bonibon set featured here is a deadstock yarn and we only have three of them for sale.

HOW DO YOU PERSONALLY INTERPRET THE CONCEPT OF UPCYCLING IN YOUR WORK?

Amongst other things, I use upcycling as a way to challenge the shape in my garments. This is something I find very interesting and it keeps us ‘on our toes’ in the atelier, because maybe the vision is to create a dress or a tailored suit, but the amount of fabric available lures us to re-think and re-discover what it can and will be.

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF THE DESIGNER IN THESE TIMES?

To use fashion as a communication tool and to try to break the fashion cycle as we know it. To reflect on the times we live in and to take responsibility for the fact that fashion should be more than bestselling t-shirts and sneakers, it should keep moving forward and create a sense of utopia and freedom.

IF YOU COULD CHANGE ONE THING ABOUT OUR INDUSTRY WHAT WOULD IT BE?

To end all fast fashion companies. 

I asked my team as well and here is what they would change: 

1_ More handmade and more local industry partnerships.

2_ Fewer collections per year.

3_ End the "normality" of fast fashion and mass production.

4_ Create better working conditions for garment makers.

5_ A greater focus on the upcycling of textiles.