Intimately Social

Fashion is often confusing. A notoriously shallow discipline, like all others at it’s best it’s stunning, and at it’s worst, well, it’s stunning. Clothing oneself, is often a very personal ritual. Each day, each person puts on their clothes ‘one pant leg at a time’, and yet when it comes to fashion, it’s a world so far away, so out of touch from daily life. Swedish designer, Minna Palmqvist, a recent graduate from Konstfack College of Art, Craft and Design in Stockholm approaches her work as an investigation called Intimately Social. It’s an ongoing process, an investigation “of the boarders and collisions between the socially accepted body and the intimate, physical body. It is also concerned with the differences between fashion as a concept and a world of its own, and fashion as an embodied practice in everyday life.”

“I though find it very interesting how little we speak of the actual bodies that we have within the fashion context. But that doesn’t mean that I think that the norms should be switched, since it doesn’t really matter what the norm is - someone will always be “wrong”.” [...] My relationship to fashion and the body is very complex, but that is what drives me forward. I see these clashed as something beautiful rather than something shameful that should be hidden. ~ Minna Palmqvist

The concept is expressed in the various fleshy colors used in the collection with hanging bra shapes, and cellulite embroidery (yes, look closely at the trousers… beautiful). The garments are also multi-functional, the shirt that turns into a dress, the jacket that changes it’s form goes into the very flexibility of the human condition. You can see how the collection works in this short movie.

Oh… did you by chance see the resemblance of the top left picture, and my shoulder pad hats? Yep, Minna Palmqvist was the inspiration.