Laura Hertz Karlsen: 92 Days to Graduation 2017

Laura: “I am at a point in my process that is still quite open. I am experimenting with draping, deconstruction and textiles, I am working on the lineup, and tomorrow I am going to London to look for fabrics.

The project is inspired by how we understand the objects that surround us including garments. In fashion, a collar alone is enough to represent an entire shirt. For me, it is about understanding the whole in the fragment.

The backbone of the project is reconfiguring the notion of how we perceive clothes through challenging the basic categories of dress namely the white shirt, the trench coat, the little black dress, jeans, the sweater, and the corset. I try to test the limits of these classics for instance by asking whether a shirt attached to a leg, is it still a shirt?

Through manipulating form, detail, placement, and size of sartorial classics, I hope to present a collection that is – as my working title suggests –‘Neither Nor’. The final result will span from the recognizably classic to conceptual interpretations.

In terms of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, I am very inspired by Goal 12 that is concerned with responsible consumption and production. Each item in the collection is detachable to enable it to reconnect with other items or be replaced when it is no longer functional. It this sense, the lifespan of the collection is expanded because some elements can live on while new ones are added.”