lifeiscarbon®

Finnish Control Freaks

Photos by Knotan

lifeiscarbon® have long been fans of the Finnish street fashion brand CTRL and recently caught up with their designer, Freeman, to hear about the origins of the company and their plans for the future.

“CTRL was born a little over ten years ago, first it was all about skateboarding, deep roots, camel toes, tee-shirts, loose attitudes and the art of chasing tail in the streets of Helsinki. Then, about 4 or 5 years ago, we jumped over into the fashion world, or at least into the street fashion world, because we realized that the best way to get attention from the hottest girls was by running a fashion label. And they really do fall for that, and Oh boy we love it!”

CTRL have come a long way since those early days, having produced several clothing lines, a lot of skateboarding equipment and been behind numerous parties, social gatherings and secret events. Having successfully become heroes in Finland, their next moves are to make it big in New York and take over Stockholm. As Freeman explained; “We don’t intend to remain an exclusive small cool brand - instead CTRL is going to be a HUGE COOL BRAND.”

With a strong belief in universal love as part of the company’s core philosophy, CTRL are keen to get involved in creative collaborations and especially with organizations like Greenpeace or Amnesty International. As Freeman so aptly put it; “Saving the world is no joke”. CTRL has already created two collaborative skateboards, the first with VICE magazine and a second (old-school style board) together with ROCKERS NYC and are about to release a limited edition board together with Adidas.

Take a look below at some of our favorites from CTRL’s AW08 collection:

Fashionable Swedish Dandyism

Despite the strictly enforced dress code of either all black or all white clothing at lifeiscarbon® (yeah we know…hardly original since it’s the ubiquitous dress code for most Scandinavian designers), we do occasionally have a tendency towards the flamboyant. Call us strange, but some of us take a perverse pleasure in wearing highly colorful underwear beneath our monochromatic and puritanical exteriors. When, we wonder, will Superman’s habit of wearing underpants on the outside catch on?

Not that we want our readers to think that we’re in the habit of showing each other our underwear around the office but something of a competitive nature abounds and when our reliable old Björn Borg undies don’t cut the mustard we turn to the latest funky designs from Frank Dandy.

The Swedish fashion brand Frank Dandy was born in early 2002, supposedly as a reaction to underdeveloped underwear market of the time. Clearly on a mission to break the rules of traditional underwear, these days the brand is represented in over 13 countries spread across Scandinavia, Europe, North America and Asia. Not content with creating underwear, Frank Dandy have invented the term Superwear to cover a range of clothing including jeans, jackets, shirts and accessories for men, women and children. We’re particularly partial to their crazy colored Long Johns. Take a look below at a few of our favorites:

Young Swedish Fashion Duo

It’s not often that lifeiscarbon® lacks inspiration but when occasionally we do, we know we can always turn to our friend Martin Bundock at AWB AB, the innovative Stockholm based communication agency. Martin somehow seems to be plugged into all the latest must-know-about trends and must-be-at happenings in Sweden, not to mention that he's probably friends with all the must-get-to-know people in Stockholm.

Martin's most recent piece of inspiration was to introduce us to the up and coming Swedish fashion brand Jojo & Malou. The label was founded by the Swedish design duo Jojo Ericson and Malou Palmqvist, who met eight years ago whilst completing an Art Foundation course at the Kent Institute of Art & Design. Both went on to complete fashion degrees in Womenswear Design, Jojo at Ravensbourne College of Design and Malou at Middlesex University.

Despite always having the intention to one day combine forces to create their own fashion brand, after graduating in 2004, Malou gained experience by working for Markus Lupfer and Katie Hillier, whilst Jojo split her time between Dover Street Market and Peter Jensen. However, the friends eventually before pooled their talents to create a collection for the renowned Fashion Fringe competition in 2005.

Since then, Jojo & Malou have created an exclusive diffusion line for Topshop, taken part in the RED campaign, and collaborated creatively with Gabriel Garcia Gauche, Japanese Nylon, Dazed and Confused and ELLE. They have twice been awarded a New Generation sponsorship to participate in London Fashion Week, staged their first ever catwalk show in Stockholm during +46, and represented the UK for the British Council in Lithuania. Take a look below at some of our favorites from their SS08 collection:

Scandinavian Ecoluxury

Sadly, many would say that today’s chemical-focused textile industry not only harms the environment but also creates garments that are in fact harmful to the wearer’s skin. Luckily, the Swedish fashion designer Camilla Norrback has recognized this fact and chosen to produce the major part of her garments in ecological or environment-certified natural materials. For fabrics to be labeled ecological they must be created in environmentally friendly ways tat every stage of production; cultivation, processing and coloring.

Camilla Norrback only uses production methods that affect the environment as little as possible, for example by using natural alternatives to toxins and chemicals. Environment-certified fabrics are processed and colored in an environment-friendly way, making sure that pigments aren’t released into the groundwater and that the finished fabrics contain no toxins or heavy metals that could be harmful to potential wearers of her garments.

Recognizing that environment-friendly technology for producing fabrics has evolved far enough not to compromise a designer’s artistic freedom, Camilla Norrback has called her fashion range, Ecoluxury. Take a look below at our favorite outfits from the SS08 collection:

IVANAhelsinki's New Collection

The last few days have seen Helsinki bathed in warm sunshine and it seems as if Spring has finally arrived in the far North. It’s time for Scandinavians to finally start donning their lighter weight summer clothing and no doubt many people will own at least one classic looking outfit from IVANAhelsinki, our Finnish fashion favorites.

These days, IVANAhelsinki describes itself as an Art Fashion brand but despite having come a long way since its humble beginnings, as leisurewear for matchstick factory workers, it hasn’t lost its delicate combination of Scandinavian style with a hint of Slavic melancholy.

Still fresh from being given the honor of being the first Scandinavian brand to have ever been accepted on the official main show list during Paris Fashion Week, IVANAhelsinki are currently promoting their new collection for AW08, entitled BirdRing. Take a look below at a selection of our favorites from the collection and be sure to check out IVANAhelsinki’s dramatically different updated website:

Danish Designer, Artist, Filmmaker, Musician...

Often heard in its incomplete form, the expression Jack of all trades, master of none is these days mostly incorrectly used as an insult. The full quote, Jack of all trades, master of none, though ofttimes better than master of one, was originally intended as a compliment and used to describe anyone who was something of a polymath or Renaissance man. From his base in Copenhagen, the multitalented Danish designer Henrik Vibskov is certainly a Jack of all trades, and we mean that in the nicest possible sense of the expression.

As if his wonderful funky fashion creations (take a look below) and extravagant catwalk shows don’t keep him busy enough, Henrik Vibskov is also a musician, filmmaker and artist. His short film The Monk was selected by a panel of prominent personalities such as Jarvis Corker, Douglas Gordon and Dave Stewart to win the Beck’s Future Prize 2000 in the UK with another of hi short films, The Egg, also being shortlisted. Both films have subsequently been shown at numerous art exhibitions and film festivals around the world. Together with the Japanese fine art artist Mitsunori Asakura, Vibskov has also produced a documentary entitled Pigs In Tokyo. Music is another of Vibskov's passions. Having been introduced to them by his brother, Henrik Vibskov has been playing drums since the age of 10. He has so far appeared on 10 releases with various independent artists and is the drummer for the Danish musician Trentemoeller.

Read more about Henrik Vibskov below and see a selection of our favorite images from his recent Fantabulous Bicycle Music Factory collection:

Why Red? Why Not Blue?

We love the clean lines, neat shapes and quirky details of modernist Swedish fashion brand Whyred. Established in 1999, Whyred was founded by Roland Hjort, Lena Patriksson and Jonas Clason, three former employees of H&M who decided to combine their collective skills in design, production and marketing to create their own fashion brand.

Separate from their regular collections, Whyred have also created Art Project, an ongoing series of creative collaborations with artists, as a way of gaining inspiration though experimentation with fresh ideas in contemporary art. With the belief that artists and designers should inspire each other and come up with new creations together, Art Project was launched in 2005 with help from the Stockholm based curator Ben Loveless.

Whyred’s most recent collaboration is with the Swedish artist Malin Pettersson Öberg who created a wall painting (in the Whyred store at Mäster Samuelsgatan in Stockholm) that touches on the themes of language, cultural identity, urban rumors and the borders between reality and fiction. Two earlier collaborations have also been successfully produced with two other Swedish artists: Underwear with Jockum Nordström in 2005 and Bags and T-Shirts with Roger Andersson in 2006. Take a look below to see a selection of our favorite outfits from Whyred’s SS08 collection and to read more about the company:

Scandinavian Fashion Acquisition

Whilst it’s unusual for us to cover corporate news on lifeiscarbon®, given the popularity of the previous articles we’ve written about Cheap Monday, we thought readers might be interested to know that the company has agreed to sell itself to H&M.

H&M has announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire the privately owned Swedish fashion company Fabric Scandinavien AB, the company that runs the store chains Weekday and Monki, and sells a number of its own brands including Cheap Monday. At this stage, H&M states that it plans to run the company as a standalone subsidiary within the H&M Group.

H&M acquires 60 percent of the shares in Fabric Scandinavien for SEK 564 million in cash ($94.5 million) from its current owners, the founders Adam Friberg, Lars Karlsson, Örjan Andersson and Linda Friberg, who will all continue to work within the company. Fabric Scandinavien have also entered into an additional agreement in which H&M has the possibility/obligation to acquire the remaining shares in the company within three to five years. Take a look below to read more about the deal and to see images from Cheap Monday’s SS08 collection:

Swedish Fashion Japanese Style

Following on from their collaborations with Roberto Cavalli and Viktor & Rolf, Swedish retailer Hennes & Mauritz has announced that their next collaboration will be with the Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo. Sadly, you’ll have to wait a while before you get your hands on the new collection as the world launch is not until the opening of H&M’s second store in Tokyo in the beginning of November.

Comme des Garçons’ founder and head designer Rei Kawakubo, much admired for her rebellious sense of style, will design a women’s and a men’s collection, together with some pieces for children. Accessories and an exclusive unisex fragrance will also be included in the collection.

"I have always been interested in the balance between creation and business. It is a dilemma, although for me creation has always been the first priority. It is a fascinating challenge to work with H&M since it is a chance to take the dilemma to its extreme, and try to solve it" explains Rei Kawakubo:

Faces We Love

Photos by Knotan

Recent projects have found lifeiscarbon® plunged into the world of fashion, either behind the scenes at catwalk shows, during photo shoots or editing magazine layouts, all of which have given us the chance to get to know some of the best models from Scandinavia. Looking forward, some of our future plans will see us working closely with many of the renowned photographers, stylists, make-up artists and most celebrated models in the region.

Should a website about Scandinavian Aesthetics also write about models with distinctive Nordic looks, as well as the usual mix of art, design, fashion and music? Since we’ve confessed as to the brands we love and magazines we love, should we come clean about the faces we love too? Given our penchant for showing the work of our favorite photographers from the region, should we use a new series of articles on the faces we love as a further excuse to showcase even more photography? Decisions, decisions, decisions….

Whilst we deliberate we’ll take the opportunity to introduce you to one of our favorite Scandinavian faces of the moment, the Norwegian model Hege Golf. We’ll be writing a review of the various Scandinavian model agencies in the near future, but for those who need to know, Hege is represented in Norway by Team Models and in Sweden by Elite. It’s also a good excuse to show more of the work of our talented friend Knotan. Take a look below to see some selected shots from some of his recent shoots with Hege: