Anne Sofie Madsen Spring Summer 2016
Photography by Hana Knizova
Words and Styling by Alessandra Conti
Could you tell us about your background and what brought you to fashion as a designer?
I've always wanted to draw, but I found out, that while I was very fascinated by shapes and forms, I was really more interested in movement. I spend most of my studies on doing 2D animation and storyboarding. But at some point fashion caught my attention. I was seduced and then I joined the dark side. For me fashion is an extraordinary media. I love the fact that the pieces I create will end up being a part of peoples live and be a part of their story - the pictures on their phones, the most crazy party or a broken heart. I love the speed and I’ll guess I am addicted.
Did you have a mentor? Or do you recognise in someone that kind of figure?
I don’t think I have had one mentor, but different persons has definitely influenced my way of thinking and working. I believe every single choice we make will somehow visualize in the way we work. For me I think this experiences has made me dare to see fashion as a very personal expression - even if it means that I have to show fragile an vorunable sites of myself.
Who do you think is, or has been, the most innovative designer in the past ten years?
I don’t know - I have many favorites.
After working in Paris and London you decided to start your own label in Denmark, your native country. Can you tell us why?
Copenhagen offers an extremely comfortable way of living. We are surrounded by beaches, the air and water is clean, we go everywhere by bike and have a small but diverse and interesting cultural scene. Our studio is in the center of the city and some of my favorite spots are around the corner. I love to live here, but it’s definitely a challenge to run a fashion company from here. From a fashion point of view I feel a much closer relationship with some of the French, British and American brands that started out at the same time as me.
How do you think the role of the fashion designer has changed in your time?
I am not sure.
A side from your collections, your creative production is also expressed by numerous illustrations that remind me of the Vienna Secession, in particular: Eagon Schiele, some drawings by Oskar Kokoschka and also some illustrations from the beginning of the XX century by Toulouse Lautrec. Have you ever been inspired by any of these artists?
There was a picture in my childhood bedroom by Egon Schiele: Frau mit grünen Strümpfen. I’ll guess both his and Oskar Kokoscha’s drawings has been really important for me. I have been drawing since before I can remember - even before I could speak. I grew up with siblings who all knew how to draw and paint.The thing that makes illustration important for my process and different from all other things I do is that I can do this completely alone, I can decide exactly how everything looks and change it if I want, turn the world onside down and forget about gravity if I want. I feels in a way like a private language that only I speak while it still allows other people to understand.
Could you tell as something about your upcoming FW17 collection?
For the SS16 collection, I explored the struggle between the admitted desire to dress and the un-admitted desire to undress. The collection embodies the contrasts between something extremely vulnerable and private but at the same time exposed and powerfully seductive.
For the FW17 collection my starting point is very simple in the same way. The collection in inspired by the fact that Elvis was twin-less twin and that his great-great-great-grandmother was Native American. Her name was Morning White Dove.
On January 8, 1935 Gladys Presley gave birth to two twins. Jesse Garon, and Elvis Aron in a shotgun shack in Tupelo Mississippi. Jesse Garon was stillborn and announced dead at birth. Elvis Aron lived, and was happy and healthy. Elvis suffered greatly throughout his life being a twin-less twin and the life and death of his stillborn twin brother, Jesse Garon, was a precious mystery to Elvis, an indelible part of his life. But then, Elvis was always intrigued by the mystery that lay at the heart of all existence. Many believe that Jessie was the force behind Elvis's creativity and self- destructive tendencies.
Model Sienna at Tess Management, Make up Natsumi Narita, Hair Takuya Uchiyama, Make up Assistant Eri Sawamoto, Hair Assistant Yuki Matsuo.
