It’s interesting how things sometimes end up in your lap—in this case, it was a bag belonging to a friend of a friend that ended up on my kitchen table, and things developed from there. Those of you who already have read a few of my interviews from this interview series know that I have a tendency to stumble upon people and things that catch my interest. Well, the bag on my kitchen table sparked my interest and led me on a quest to find out more about the woman behind the brand. Turns out, she’s been staying in Copenhagen for a few months. Lucky me!

Read on to learn how a woman born and raised in Australia ended up starting a bag brand in Guatemala.

Core77: What inspired you to start designing?

Athena Maroulis: I’ve always loved colors, patterns and dressing up since I was a kid. My mother is an architect and both of my parents have travelled a lot and have an appreciation for art. Our house was full of paintings, art deco furniture (my dad’s obsessed), African jewelry, millinery ribbons (my great grandmother was well known hat-maker) and exotic fabrics amongst other things. I think that growing up in this kind of environment makes you conscious of shapes, colors, textures and how things are put together.

Other than that, I have been sewing since I was around 13 and learned how to make garments. From there, I placed top 10 in the state in my final year textiles and design and knew I wanted to have my own fashion business. It seems that design has been in my life from an early age.

Being exposed to items from so many different cultures most have triggered your imagination on many levels. Do you remember any particular piece that you found extra interesting?

It’s hard to pinpoint one piece specifically. I have a huge appreciation for structured lines and symmetry and I think it’s due to the art deco buffet table, drink cabinet and side board that we had in our home. However, I think my favorite thing (now and forever) has been dressing up, so I’ve probably spent countless hours fossicking through and trying on the fabulous pieces in my great grandmother’s old costume jewellery box. There are the most amazing chintzy, glitzy, rhinestone encrusted statement jewellery pieces in there. I still find them so fascinating and beautiful.

You now design and produce your own bag brand called Athinaeum. What brought this about?

After I quit my job at an advertising agency, I had been traveling for many months in South America and was heading north. I had missed my onward ticket to Spain after enjoying Carnival in Brazil. Alone in Panama, I had the flu and was at a loose end, not knowing what to do. I was thinking of heading north to the States but wanted to go through Central America. After a weird series of serendipitous events, I accidentally ended up with a plane ticket to Guatemala.

It hadn’t been part of my plan to fly there, but I changed my mind when I heard about a yoga and meditation retreat there. I decided that it was what I needed to gather my thoughts, recharge and figure out my next steps. After completing the course, which included a week of silence, I felt tranquil, healthy and inspired.

All around me were these amazing textiles and I knew I wanted to evolve them into something beautiful and functional, to be treasured by a Western market. The idea evolved and over the next eight months I developed, prototyped and produced my first collection. I’ve always known I wanted to create something wearable and I’ve always loved sewing and designing, but I had found the fast fashion cycle quite scary. It was so gratifying to find a creative outlet which is both sustainable and beautiful.

What is it with the cycle of fashion that you want to avoid? And how do you do so?

The cycle of fashion and the constant craving for newness is something that’s unfortunately programmed into society. It has been around since after World War II, when the focus shifted from long-lasting quality towards planned obsolescence (or things designed to have a short life-span). Having said that, fashion trends have evolved since clothing was invented because people’s tastes changed and evolved naturally.

We are now realizing that we do not have infinite resources. From a design and manufacturing perspective, this means that we need to go back to a system of making and buying things that will last longer and also explore how to repurpose existing materials. I think that fast fashion brands will not disappear anytime soon, but if we, as consumers, choose beautifully designed things, that are better quality we won’t have to replace things as quickly and we will keep them for longer. If we buy fewer things that last longer, we can minimize how much ends up in landfill.

Athinaeum started as I saw people repurposing these beautiful Mayan handwoven textiles into things like handbags and other accessories. Unfortunately the products were poorly made and would fall apart after a couple of wears. I really spent a lot of time and effort to find great leather craftsmen and source quality zippers so that the handbag itself would last. I now have friends who have Athinaeum handbags from the first collection released in December 2011 and they rejoice at how many bottles of wine they have carried, how many countries they accompanied them to and how they still look great and they still love wearing their bags. I also tried to create a design that was very practical yet simple so that it could be versatile and beautiful silhouette to showcase the stunning handwoven textiles. Sometimes I say that I try to make things that people will want to pass on to their children—I really hope that I can make things that are both high quality and beautiful enough that they will want to.

When developing the handbags, how was your process in regards to the craftsmen?

I worked really closely with the leather craftsmen when creating my original collection. I knew the rough styles of the bags that I wanted to make, but sometimes working with leather is really different to sewing or patternmaking with cloth, which is what I’m familiar with. There are a lot of shortcuts you can make with leather, which is great.

I really worked closely with them to develop prototypes and from there we went on and I chose different leather colors to complement each textile. Because they are indigenous Mayans, it really helps because they know how the abstract motiffs should be positioned and what is the focal point of each cloth. This really helps because it can be hard to see what’s the best part of the fabric and I trust them to cut up and trim these beautiful fabrics and get the best out of each piece. It’s still a very collaborative process and I mark up each cloth ensuring they know which parts to use for what. It’s nice to trust them because essentially they are helping me to highlight and showcase the best of each textile, kind of like framing an artwork.

What sort of relationship do you have with the women creating the Mayan fabrics that you use?

From time to time, I have the honor of meeting the women who make each textile, but there are so many textiles and so many amazing women who have put hours into each piece. They are true artists—besides skilfully weaving each textile, they select the wild color palettes and the design and embellishments. The textiles are from many different regions which I try to include in the style names of each piece so that you can google and even look up the region.

I also work closely with a few women who trade and buy the textiles and then sell them for the ladies who live in small remote communities. The Mayan women I work with are strong, kind and humble. They have taught me a lot about family, culture and the secrets behind the symbology and techniques of the weavings and why they are significant to each region.

What sort of impact would you like your business to have on the local community?

After 36 years of civil war in Guatemala, which only ended in 1996, the country has been stuck in political, social and economic disarray for many years. In some ways, the poverty of some areas of regional Guatemala has served to preserve their ancient customs and traditions. However, there is much to be done to build the country and it’s really starting to progress in many ways.

I work closely with a family-owned workshop and I ensure that they all earn a wage that ensures a good standard of living for them and their families. Aside from that, I try and do as much possible with Athinaeum in Guatemala in order to feed the profits back into this country. For instance, all of my tags and labels are made there as well. Lastly, I also have the Athinaeum re-usable cloth carry bags (made in Guatemalan mills) made with a social enterprise called Mercado Global who work to empower women in Guatemala to create their own micro-businesses.

That sounds really interesting. When it comes to the micro-businesses, is there anyone in particular that has caught your attention?

The girl who made the cloth bags is called Isabel and she worked on them with her sister. Her story is pretty amazing. She started her micro-business a couple of years back and before that she used to work in Guatemala City and back to make tortillas to sell on the street for very measly wages. She has 12 siblings and didn’t go to school past the sixth grade. She’s now able to send six of her younger siblings to school and is the leader of a women’s cooperative that sews and works on an ongoing basis with Mercado Global. She’s a really warm and sweet girl who has the heart of a lion! Her story is not uncommon though and there are plenty of inspirational artisans living in rural Guatemala.

What’s next for you?

It’s a really exciting time for me because there are so many question marks. I’ve just had my first child who is an awesome little dude. I’m living in Copenhagen and Athinaeum is based in Sydney. My partner and I are heading back to Sydney to spend a couple of months there at the end of the year to check in on things and suss out opportunities there. Afterwards, we’re going to spend a month in the Philippines to see what kind of opportunities are there for both of us. I’ve always hoped that Athinaeum would be a global adventure so let’s see what 2015 brings!

We are looking forward to see where things are heading, and what you will present to us next. But before you head off on new adventures, can you give us some Do’s and Don’ts when it comes to working with design and production in countries that are not our own?

Ha! I could write a novel on this subject. I guess I’ll firstly say that it is important to spend as much time [at a production site] as possible to get to know the people. Understand the way that they do things and make sure everybody is aware of your expectations; you must be aware of their expectations too. People who are from a third-world country that has had a lot of instability or conflict can sometimes be distrustful and used to different levels of quality to what you are used to.

Be kind and understanding of one another, but be sure not to get swindled. It’s really useful to know the language and if you don’t, ensure you have a trustworthy translator so that everything is crystal clear and it helps if they have a good ‘production vocabulary.’ You can also be super sure that you’ve been understood by clearly drawing your ideas and instructions, make hand gestures and do anything else to make sure you’re understood.

 

Connecting through t-shirts

 

First friends:

Juliet – Copenhagen, Denmark

Bram – Copenhagen, Denmark

Lene – Copenhagen, Denmark

Rodolfo – Mexico

Giorgio – Reunion Island

Berit – Copenhagen

Reka – Copenhagen

You meet many people when you are out and about in the world. During one of my trips to Paris I ran into Kenza. She’s young, she’s energetic and her smile is infectious. We started talking in a bar a about fashion and life and passion for our respective trades. She told me she was a photographer living in Bali. I looked at her and thought to myself: “Yeah, yeah, she’s just another person with a camera who calls herself a photographer because it sounds good…!”
But how wrong I was. And I’m more then happy to admit it. This girl is good, as in GOOD…!

Moa: Tell us a bit about your background

Kenza:My parents are french (Avignon and Normandie ) but I have mexican and Moroccan blood from my biological father. I grew up in Bali and left the south of france ‘Avignon’ when I was 7years old. It was because of my parents business we decided to move to Bali.

You started taking pictures at a very young age, where did this interest arrive from?

At the age of 14 i saved up money to buy a reflex camera to be able to capture moments of my lifestyle. I’ve always been interested in everything related to art since I was a kid but when i started to understand the freedom of having a camera in the hand and creating scenarios, photography was it

How would you say that your love to photography has developed since then?

By working with other artist, capturing any beauty, getting inspired by places I’ve been or moments in my life Ive been trough … Imagination never stops but keep growing the more I shoot the more I learn new little things

How is it to be a young female photographer in the fashion industry?

Well, at the beginning it wasn’t to easy. I must say the agency wouldn’t let me test their models to experiment or make up artists for that mater, and stylist didn’t trust me. So I had to fight to work with them, then slowly they started recognize my work and to agree on doing projects together. Now I don’t see any difference between me and the ones who’s been in the business longer.

How have you learned the tricks of the trade? Have you had any support from an older and more experienced photographer?

Well I am very far from knowing all the tricks to be honest. I’ve been learning by reading books and online tutorials and experimenting by my own. I did an internship with a photographer, but that was a long time ago. At the moment I have lots of support from this photographer that teach me heaps of stuff, I would actually call him my ”professor”, and I’m his muse. We both are really passionate about what we do. We have very different eyes and styles, but we get really inspired by each other. He have all the technical knowledge and I bring the art touch. That’s why we learn from one another.

When working, what inspires you the most?

It really depends… Everything can inspires me. For example when I work with a wonderful team that gives good vibes to the shoot, but even a negative vibe with a energy can inspire me. But also how people act or react to something, the light, the location I’m working, the mood I am in and the connection I have with the model is also very important… I always try to be very close to her rather then using her like an object. That way I get the most of her and can capture something more deep and powerful.
I’m usually inspired before I’m on set. Thats an everyday inspiration from movies or situation I put my self in, relationships I have with people by partying. Dreams is also one of my biggest inspiration.I write everything down and think of how I could make all this emotions into an concept, a photo shoot.

What would you say is the hardest part of being a freelance photographer?

You have to be organised when it comes to everything. Depending on the low and high season I have to be aware my money situation, because I don’t get an every month fix salary… There is no company or agencies that represent me so I have to promote my self constantly not to be forgotten by shooting and make people talk about me as much as possible. You to be active and never stop creating & building artistic projects etc.. I am completely independent so there’s good and negative sides of it.

Where would you say you get most of your costumers from? And is there a difference when it comes to where you get most projects and where you get most money?

Mainly from word of mouth. There’s also the publications in Magazines (editorial) that helps, of course interviews, but also Instagram and Facebook. Usually its brands that get in contacts with me to photograph their new campaign/lookbook. It doesn’t make a difference where they hear about me when it comes to who pays the most. There’s really big companys who have found me via Instagram and low budget companies that might have seen my work in a magazine. It doesn’t really make a big difference.

Do you do other photo shoots other of fashion?

Well I am still in this ”experimenting” phase of my life where I’m trying to find myself and my style… I also do landscape and lifestyle. I recently met a war photographer, and I would love to experiment with this as well, but what I mainly love is fashion and beauty. Thats what I love the most because its like having a white piece of paper and a pen and draw what you have in mind. Choosing a girl that is right for the concept, creating an ambiance and an attitude. I went with my ”professor” on an excursion a week ago to climb a sulfur volcano at 2 in the morning in Jawa to take images and do an exhibition, capturing shooting stars, workers, and lava fields. It was quiet magical and we are very satisfied with the result of the images.

When and where are you expecting to be having this exhibition?

In Hong Kong hopefully before july but i can’t say more on the subject before its 100% ready.

Before ending this interview, could you tell us about one of your favourite shoots and why it left such an imprint on you?

I could seriously give you 100 of examples…Haha…
This is a hard one because I am very emotionally attached to almost every single of my shoots. But I could give you few example of ones that has touch me the most. I’ve loved Frida Kahlo since I studied her when I was in school. So I decided to make a shoot with her as the main inspiration. It wasn’t easy, the stylist and make up artist is a very difficult woman hard to work with that doesn’t go along with anyone, and the model had the put herself in Frida’s skin. The pictures turned out very good and really created the emotion I had in mind. Its probabably one of my favourite shoots.
There’s also another one that I really love. It was in studio and I did it with my ex boyfriend who’s an hairdresser. The concept was very dark, we had to drop candle wax on a female model, it was late at night and very hard to get the light right, but the entire the team was working hard and the images turned out insane! Every time I look at those photos it bring me back to that beautiful obscure night we all had.
I also really like this other shoot I did with a russian model. It was only her and I, and we did everything together in terms of make up and wardrobe. We were alone in this villa and we just hanged out and took photos. I really got to know her in a short time and that is what made the pictures look so good and you can see that there’s true emotion behind it.

Location: Copenhagen, Denmark

About one year ago, I was giving a talk to students who were about to graduate from the various design schools in Copenhagen. After I finished, I leaned back in a chair located rather close to the door (and close to the drinks and snack section…) when I caught myself staring at a bag. It captivated me to the extent that everything around me disappeared, and the only thing left was the bag and me. Once I snapped out of it, I went up to the person holding the bag as to ask him where he had bought it. To my great despair, it turned out he had made it himself, and he was holding the only sample. The Man with The Bag turned out not just to have a great eye for design, but to also have a great and intricate mind, and his name is Brian Frandsen

Core77: Tell us a bit about your background. How did you end up in the field of design?

Brian Frandsen: I was not supposed to study design to begin with, I never thought I would do anything like this. It sort of just happened. I’ve always been a bit of a book nerd— I live very much in my head. I’ve always loved school, mathematics and humanistic studies, so I thought I was going to study Danish, rhetoric, philosophy, political science or something along that line.

After high school, I was lucky enough to get a job in quality control for a Danish mainstream clothing brand at their office in Hong Kong. I spent half a year there, with my partner at that time, and while I was there it hit me how disgusting the fashion industry really was.

My boss would find something she liked, draw it in Illustrator and send it off to the factory in China. After we got the sample and established the price of the product, they took away a few details to make it cheaper to produce and sent it back to the factory. The entire fashion and design mechanism was without feeling, without heart. I felt offended by the way it worked, yet at the same time it fascinated me.

I lived in Hong Kong for a while—just as with the fashion industry, I had contradicting feelings for the city itself. I loved it and hated it at the very same time. It’s the most constructed place I have ever been. It feels like nothing in Hong Kong is natural, everything is man-made, everything has its place, and all of the buildings are built in a specific way. But at the same time, when you walk around and truly look you can see how the traditional Chinese culture is creating its own space in the cracks of the perfect façade. It grows like weed out of the asphalt. These perfect glass buildings and the uncontrollable growth that is happening in between theses buildings ignited something within me that changed me on a fundamental level.

After I got back, I still thought I was going to go to Copenhagen to study and get a serious degree in one of the rather academic fields. I don’t know if they have it in other countries as well but in Denmark, universities have something they called Open House where you can visit the uni’s and check out all of the courses available. I visited all of the ones I could think of, but in the evening, only Copenhagen design school was open so I went there just to see what they had to offer, and I was hooked. There was something about it, the same thing that had fascinated me with China, that was man-made and then the other side, the one that you could not control. That you should put yourself in the space between what the logic tells you and what your intuition tells you. That’s where I wanted to be.

Another important factor in my decision to go to design school was a reform that resulted in a more theory-driven education. After that I went home, did some research and found out that there is only two design schools in Denmark: The Design School of Copenhagen and Design School Kolding. I visited Kolding and realized it was time for me to choose between a life (in Copenhagen) or a superior (to me, at least) education (in Kolding). I went for the latter. I applied the same year, and I actually didn’t expect to get in that same year, but to my great surprise I did. So that was how I got into design.

What got you through these five years at Design School Kolding?

[Laughing] It’s been six or seven years now, as I’ve been working there as well… Not one single month have passed since I started that I haven’t thought “What am I doing here? I’m not a designer. I should stop this and start studying at the university!”

I’ve had a really hard time fitting into the idea of what it is to be a designer. I started with industrial design and it is a rather square way of thinking. You are supposed to design this-or-that sort of product, and to do it in this-or-that sort of way. I have a tendency to think on a more abstract level. As I said, I live very much in my head. This has been a hard thing to handle and has created a rather difficult relationship between some of my teachers and myself. I’ve tried to explain my way of thinking, the philosophy behind my projects and they have wanted to See something. There’s this constant struggle going on within me on so many levels. Just to get out of my own head and start making things with my hands is a long process, but when I finally get to the stage when I start creating, then the ideas just come flooding out, and it’s hard to stop creating.

After you finished your studies, you have been working in various areas of the design industry, how do you feel about it today?

I’m really trying to love it, and I’m trying to do so in the same way as you love a child who doesn’t know any better. I’ve worked on a development project at Design School Kolding where we were trying to implement sustainable processes and thinking in small- and medium-sized businesses. One of the reasons why they are not using the solutions available for a more sustainable production is because they can’t wrap their mind around the consequences. It’s such a big and abstract phenomenon—questions such as “What is responsible?”, “What is sustainable?” and ” What can we allow ourselves as a product producing industry?” can be truly hard to answer if you don’t have the right tools to do so.

One of my current preoccupations is how we can use design and design thinking to strike a balance between the analytical and intuitive processes to become a new and creative language and a new way of working when creating products. The big discussion going on right now focuses on whether people have a tendency to either blame the industry or blame the humans for everything that is going wrong with the world. Some of us seem to put ourselves on a pedestal and think of ourselves as if we are above nature, others seem to want us to stop existing since we are of greater danger then benefit to the environment. I don’t believe that either is the case.

The idea that we should stop producing things and stop buying things—in order to more or less stop existing in the physical realm and just become brains—is alien to me. It doesn’t get us anywhere. One of the solutions to the problem is to find a balance between being a rational being and a sensing being that exists in this world, who creates things that improve this world. Our ability to reason and imagine a future helps us develop, but we live here and now through our senses and our bodies.

To reach this mindset, we need to change our way of thinking of ourselves on a fundamental and human level. Thinking about how this is going to happen truly occupies me.

Right now you are working on a new handbag collection, how does this align with your line of thinking?

To be completely honest, I’m struggling with it. But at the same time, I do have this need to create, create handbags, art and products. I don’t want to create “just another thing,” I want to create something that fulfills a need, both in a functional and emotional ways. You can say that it’s my way of giving back.

I create bags that I believe people are going to buy because they know they are going to love it and keep it for many, many years, and they know they are going to have a relation to this bag. I don’t want to create something people by because of trends. If you as a designer go for creating the best and the most environmentally conscious product that also is the most beautiful and has the biggest liveability factor on the market, then you have the right to be here. If your only concern, when designing, is to sell as many things as possible without taking into consideration how this impacts people and the world, then I don’t think you have any right to be putting things out there.

Can you give us examples of designers who you think definitely have the right to be here?

It’s hard to truly see a business or a designer’s way of working and designing unless they are completely transparent, and there are very few who have reached that level. But on a personal level you can, to some extent, go after your gut feeling by asking yourself if it is a product you believe you are going to love and use for a really long time. If you truly believe that this is the case, then that is a step in the right direction. By choosing your purchases this way, you forces the makers and companies to emphasize their focus on quality and durability.

There is one fashion designer whom I have a great deal of respect for, and although I don’t know him personally, he is the only one who I trust 100%: Bruno Pieters, the man behind Honest By. He used to be the Creative Director for one of the high-end brands, and got the same sort of feeling for the industry as myself. He quit and spent a year traveling around visiting various producers as to see which one of them “had clean flour in their bag” [a Danish expression for honesty], which ones who were willing to open up their books and their manufacturing procedures and tell about the origin of their raw materials. After this, he designed a collection, which is sold such that a customer can find out absolutely everything about the various garments—from how much the seamstresses are paid to how much the safety pin holding of the tag costs—on the website where it is sold. Not that anyone reads everything, but the knowledge that it is there gives you a sensation of trust and understudying of the philosophy that drives him. This sort of absolute transparency is beautiful.

I believe that this is something we will see more of in the future. And I believe that this way of thinking is one of the things that is going to be a part of creating this change in mindset that I spoke about earlier.

In a world where it’s hard to have faith in anyone as long as there is money involved, I believe that one of the ways to create a bigger trust is to open up completely. And as far as I know, Bruno Pieters is one of the only designers to have done so to such an extent.

Is this way of being completely transparent something that you are aiming for when designing?

Absolutely, and it’s rather easy for me, seeing that my production flow is very small compared to other businesses. There are some parts that are rather hard for me to get all of the information about, but I try to gather as much information about the various parts of the objects as I possibly can. It is my goal to have a product and production flow that is 100% transparent. Every time I buy a material, I try to take it one step further and get as much information about it as possible. You can say that I’m building my own little transparency library.

You work a lot with leather, how do you feel about this?

It’s difficult, since there isn’t really any responsible production of leather that produces leather of high enough standard. I only use naturally tanned leather, which means that there’s no use of chrome or other chemicals in the tanning process. This is more healthy for the workers, as well as for the users in the long run.

Where do you find this sort of leather?

I believe it’s called full-grain leather in English, but I’m not quite sure. You can find it in more or less any store that sells leather. It’s normally the thicker and harder version, seeing that the soft and very flexible ones are the ones that have been treated with chrome and other chemicals as to make it softer and create a specific surface. I really like working with the naturally tanned leather, which just becomes better and more beautiful with age. One of the problems with working with leather from animals that have lived a good life in the outdoors is that their skin has been damaged by insect bites and scars from fence cuts. It makes it a bit less attractive to the costumers, but I try to design my products such that the flaws become a part of the appeal.

I also try to dissect the design so that the various parts can be easily separated for easy recycling—trimmings, metal parts and main structure all by themselves. Right now I’m designing a bag where the main bag, made of leather, is rather neutral and simple in its expression, while the inner bag is made from textile and is the part that you change with time. This way you can make it more personal and keep it for longer, since the design takes the seasonal change of fashion and the longevity and properties of the leather is into account in its construction.

Based on your products, it’s easy to see how your philosophies guide you when you design. What sort of reactions do you normally get when it comes to your products?

I am happy that you can see the influence of my philosophy in my designs. To be honest, I don’t think that much about it when I design. The philosophy is created in a dialectic relationship between what I do, and I believe this to be the way we in reality experience our life and the world around us. Never stop creating and never stop reflecting on your creations.

Usually people are fascinated by my products, which go to the edge of the expected without becoming statements—they always have a twist or a hidden story. People find both comfort in the classical foundation I build my designs upon and excitement in the unexpected twists and details.

You also explore other sides of design beyond bags. Tell us a bit about that.

Other then the basic design projects, I work as an innovation consultant where I primarily work with organization development, and secondly with product development. It refers to the idea of the new way of existing in this society and how to create relations and business in a more conscious way. It builds on some design principles of balancing an intuitive and an analytic way of thinking when creating. Design encompasses grand spectrum of methods on how to incorporate this in processes, and these processes can be used in more or less any field, whether it is strategies, lean product development or human resources.

Now I’m consulting various schools and NGO’s on how they can incorporate design thinking in their way of working, on a process and strategic level and in product development.

When working as a consultant, do you have a specific way of working, or does it depend on the organization?

Hmm… That’s a hard one. The strategy that I use as a base is the “design stairs” (developed by Danish Design Center). It’s easy to use in the way that you start up by asking: Do you need help developing a product, a process, a strategy or development of the organization? And I use a lot of time asking “Wh-” questions—What, Why, Where, and in the end How…

I’ve been reading a lot of Roger Martin‘s articles and books; you can say he’s my hero. He used to be the principal of the Rotman School of Business in Toronto, which is one of the most prestigious business schools fo North America. He says something along the lines with “Future business leaders should not understand designer, they should become designers.” He defines the leader as the one who balances the analytical processes and the intuitive processes in a business. His theoretical basis is something that I use when talking to the analytical thinkers, who are the majority of the people you encounter in the businesses of today. I try to convince them to start working more with their human side, their intuition and start understanding that their feelings also give something important to their work. Also, that they can trust these human sides as to make decisions on previous experiences, not just data.

I also make an effort to get clients to understand that if they want to develop anything in their business, they have to have the courage to be interrupted and let the unexpected enter. Normally this is really hard for people, since they want to have total control over everything they do, every minute of the day, so asking them to listen to their intuition is an interruption in itself. To listen to your gut feeling takes a lot of courage for people who have ignored it for such a long time.

So what is the third thing you do?

It’s art, and in reality this is my biggest creative outlet, where I can work more closely with my own essence, aesthetics, materials and storytelling. It feels fantastic.

How do you bring in your thoughts and theories into your art?

Everything is connected. In order to become more sustainable as individuals, I believe that we have to not only be human, and use our humanity when we are at home with friends and family, but that we are first and foremost humans and we have the possibility and responsibility to take this into consideration in our day-to-day life. We are a part of everything, we are connected to everything. We can never put ourselves above this, the only thing we can do is to take part of it and be a part of it in such a way that the footprints we inevitable leave behind is as positive a mark as possible.

The key to act in the transition between the social paradigm we are living in now, and a more flourishing future, is not to tear everything down and start from scratch but to continue building on the sections that actually work. I believe that the thinking and acting within design will have a major influence on our ability to do so.

Although my art is very personal, its also a study in how you act as a human being, how we interpret the world and how we connect to and interact with people around us.

We walk around in this world without really seeing it. We are so used to our brain picking up images and processing these images that we take them for granted. Since we are so used to this, since we take it for granted, many people walk around as zombies, without ever questioning or contemplating over what is going on around us. We are rarely aware of all the impressions we get, and why we understand them as we do. You can say that my art is creating deception. I like creating pieces that make you believe you see one thing, but in reality it might be something completely different. I create art that deceives the brain in such a way that it makes it hard for the brain to connect what it is seeing into something that makes sense to it creating a sort of flickering reaction. We can see it, we can’t see it…..

I want to create art that makes the brain question what our minds perceive as reality and what really is reality, and also makes us question everything we see around is in our day to day life. Nothing is what it seems, and many have to be reminded of just that as well when it comes to our day-to-day life. This is something that has been a part of the art world for as long as there has been art, I just try to make it in a more obvious manner.

The biggest piece I’ve made so far was for the Milan Fair in 2012 in collaboration with Ege-Carpets. It was a self-portrait created by 125 carpets stacked on top of one another in a standing position. For this project I’ve made a 3D scan of my own face, and cut it out in such a way that you could “walk inside my face.” And on top of these rugs there was a 2D print of my face, so when you glanced at it your brain would perceive it as a 2D picture of me, but then while moving around it your brain would start reacting to the fact that something wasn’t the way it first thought it was. Your brain will flicker between the perceived reality and the real reality, and your mind will find it hard to connect the two perceptions into one. The brain wants the sculpture to go outwards like the 2D picture, while the negative form of my face was showing in the 3D cutouts.

I loved this project, specially watching people react to the piece, to see how they first just walked passed it and then come back to look at it more closely seeing that they couldn’t make sense of what they saw at first glance. It was like giving the viewer a sort of break from only relying on their perception. It was a mental interruption.

For a long time, we have talked about making everything around us as smooth and effective as possible, but this isn’t what we need as people. We need some sort of resistance as to not lean back and only rely on our perception and start seeing the world for what it really is.

We have been talking a lot about designers, how would you describe what it is to be a designer?

I have a tendency to make the designer sound like some sort of God, and that is not my intention, far from it. But I do believe that a designer has a sort of courage when heading into a new challenge. A good designer knows how to balance divergent and convergent processes. Non-designers have this ability too, but they’ve been taught not to look at the world this way. I believe the approach of the designers, the methods and way of approaching challenges, is more accurate to how the human being is designed by nature to solve the puzzles of life.

There are two steps of courage that characterize a good designer:
1.) The courage to take two steps back and observe the world as if she isn’t a part of it, open up and reflect on what she perceives as an empty room that she then fills to the brim with information.
2.) The courage to make the hard choices, and use an analytical approach as to decided what to keep in the room and what to get rid of. Most people don’t like taking these sort of decisions, they prefer to lean back, let go of their responsibility and let someone else take their decisions for them.

So the designer asks questions for a long period of time, and just continues asking questions when others would stop asking too quickly and instead start coming up with solutions. We dare to continue asking and when we feel like we have enough information, only then do we start looking through the answers in order to construct an answer that solves the task at hand. We connect dots in such a way that they create the answer.

Rakel is yet again one of the creative minds whose development I’ve been following for a while now. What is it with people coming from Iceland? It seems like they all have been sprinkled with fairy-dust, and Rakel is no exception. She’s a wonderful combination of timid and radiant which transfers into her subtle and yet eye-catching design. This interview is a bit different compared with the previous ones in that I had the pleasure of interviewing her in person.

Core77: Tell us a bit about your background

Rakel Solvadottir: I grew up in Akureyri, a town in the north of Iceland. When I finished gymnasium [secondary school], I moved to Denmark to study fashion and textiles, but after the crisis hit Iceland, I moved back home and started my BA study at the fashion department at the Iceland Art Academy

You left Denmark as to study at Iceland Art Academy, how do you feel about your time there?

It’s such a young school in comparison to many other design and art schools in Europe, so of course there are some things that could be improved, but it is constantly evolving. You also have to be aware that you can’t learn everything in just three years of studies, and it’s up to you to take advantage of this time you have and get as much out of it as you can. I’m very satisfied with my time there. The fashion department has been growing rapidly for the last years and you see more and more graduates making a successful carrier within the field.

You can say that you bachelor project was a success, seeing as one of your pieces was worn by no other then the wonderful artist and fashionista Lady Gaga. Has that influenced your life as a designer in any way?

Of course it has. It was a big deal, a great honor and a wonderful exposure for me as a new young designer. But to be honest, I wasn’t prepared for it: The dress was not in production and I didn’t have a website, so it was hard to truly use this opportunity to the fullest. But all in all, I’m happy that she liked the dress, that she chose to wear it, and that others got to see my work.

Looking at the pieces from your master project, they are very architectural. What made you go in this direction?

I wanted to depict the female form not as curvy and soft, but in a more angular and graphical way. I wanted to show a woman that was strong and edgy….

After you finished your bachelor, you moved back to Denmark—how come?

I believe there are many possibilities in Iceland for being as small as it is, but I felt like I wanted to move back to Copenhagen and create my own thing over here. I miss the nature, and that people have a tendency to not only accept but celebrate others’ individuality and quirkiness.

What do you mean by that?

Since we don’t have a lot of the bigger brands, such as H&M, people in Iceland are not as mainstream as many of the people you see here in Copenhagen. We have to figure out our own style and not just go into one store that dictates “This is what you are supposed to wear, this is the trend we have decided on focusing on right now!”

How do you feel about the big brands and the influence they have on your field?

I’m having a lot of problems with it. It scares me is that the fashion industry is creating so much waste. It seems like there has been a constant SALE going on ever since I got here. First you have the regular SALES, then you have MIDTERM SALES and then the regular SALES again. It’s almost like a product ends up on the SALES rack in the blink of an eye. I don’t see how this can continue.

What would be the alternative?

By focusing on more sustainable solutions. Now when I’m a not a student anymore, reality strikes and makes it harder to stay true to yourself and stick to your own beliefs. I love fashion, I love design, but the designers and consumers have to gain more awareness off the harm that this industry is causing. I care about quality both when it comes to materials and design, rather than quantity. When working on pieces that are to be produced I want to create modern classics. Pieces that are up to date at the same time as they are timeless, and can therefor be a part of one’s wardrobe for long period of time. Hopefully I can make that work…

Your interest in fashion and form, where does derive from? Was there anyone who inspired you?

Well, I guess I’ve always had an interest in clothing and this way of expressing yourself through what you wear. I come from a family of flea market maniacs, which gave me the privilege of playing with clothes and the fantasy world around them as a kid. Old clothes, weird clothes, colorful clothes, hats, bags, shoes and bling! When I was a teenager, my stepmother opened an antique and secondhand boutique, where I first became fully aware of my interest in fashion. I worked in her boutique through my highschool (gymnasium) years where I learned alot about clothing and fashion, studying fashion eras and so on. I also became aware of how clothes can be used as a form of expression and that awoke an interest within me.

It was then that I first realized it was more than a hobby and something I wanted to pursue. I moved to Denmark to study fashion and I haven’t looked back since. One thing that surprised me in a positive way (and continues to inspire me) is that, of all the people I see and meet here in Denmark, the ones I find to be the most interesting one in terms of fashion are the older generations. I encounter old ladies who look amazing each time I leave my apartment.

Why do you believe that this is the case?

Maybe they are to old to give a damn about what others think about them. Maybe they have been able to nurture their individuality for such a long amount of time that their style has gone from being inspired by temporary trends to just keeping their personal favorites from each era. Every time i see them, I just want to take out my camera and take a picture of them, but for now I just settle on telling them that I like their style.

When working with designing pieces now, where do you find your inspiration?

At times i look back on my heritage, other times I find the concept in an idea, a person, an era, or in one of the other design fields such as architecture. In the process of designing and seeking inspiration, I find it important to let loose and go back to the childhood state of freedom and playfulness. To allow yourself to make mistakes, to make something ugly, until you hit the right thing in a way. It can be hard to let go of these barriers you get when you become an adult.

When working on a project, what is most important to you?

I think the most important thing to me is to stay open-minded through the whole process. To always stay open to new ideas and not make any final decisions until I absolutely need to. To reach this level of flow in your mind where you form a bond with your work. The research process is very important and I spend a lot of time on that. Then you get to this point where all you can think of is your work.

You might be discussing the weather with your sister but in your mind you’re thinking, ‘Hmmm could I use piping for those trousers… would it work to do an opening in the back…’ You become obsessed with our work—it’s all you think about at all times! I think that’s when the good things happen, which is what I love about designing or creative work for that matter.

When you are in ‘flow’ mode, how do you stay there?, and if something/someone stops it, how do you get back to it?

To stay in that mode is all about enjoying the process, letting it lead the way. It’s always interesting to look at one’s process from starting point to end result. It might be a long and crooked road but it’s extremely important to take that road. The process is the key to a satisfying end result. Of course it’s also important not to get lost in the process. You can continue developing your ideas endlessly, and especially when you’re not working on a deadline, it can be hard to make decisions and move on. I’m a bit of a daydreamer myself so setting up my own deadlines helps me stay focused.

When it comes to the greater perspective, what is your vision for yourself and for your work?

Creative freedom is important to me. I want to enjoy my work so I can keep growing, both as a designer and as a person. My goal has never been to become a big famous designer showing at the big catwalks. I want to be able to live doing what I love, create things that I believe in and be true to myself both as a designer and as a human being.

Have you ever thought about working with any other field of design?

Absolutely! I’ve been doing a few installation pieces, and I’m going to continue doing that. I’ve also designed the catwalk for another fashion designer during Iceland’s fashion week a few years ago, which was very interesting, and seeing that i have been studying different time periods in fashion, I would also like to do clothes for movies.