I’ve featured Jennie Loof before. Fact is she’s quite good. The Swedish born seamstress started her Glasgow based label a few years ago. With a background in theatre Jennie’s honed her craft allowing her to play with shapes in her clothes, with a strong eco-friendly message to her label – using reclaimed vintage prints and fabrics I emailed Jennie to have a quick bleather about her collection Family Chest and her latest forray in to fashion film.
Tell me about the Family Chest collection – what inspired it?
Every time I go home to Sweden I always go out hunting for fabrics and inspiration. Last February my mum revealed our old family chest, this chest have always had a place in my mums sewing room (also their guest room) but I have never realised the treasure that was hiding inside. Both my grannies, their mums and my mum were all amazing seamstresses and my mum had saved all of their old fabrics and patterns in this chest. Fabrics that I remember from my childhood and some to old for me to remember but we were sitting going through this box all night with stories of memories of me, my sister and my mums youth. Remnants from baby clothes, cuddly toys to my sisters bridesmaids dresses all saved by mum for a moment like this.
The Family chest collection was born this evening and many of the actual fabrics from the chest is used in the collection making it the most sentimental yet.
I know you mentioned it has some history to do with your Grandmother and was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about her personal style and how she influenced you as a designer? Do you feel that there is a strong sense of heritage in this collection?
Growing up I spent a lot on time with both of my grannies and I have always loved dressing up and usually we ended up using their wardrobes to dress up as princesses or mermaids or whatever was the inspiration of the day. We could make any fairytale come true from their everyday clothes. I don’t think I have ever grown out of this mind. Clothes should be fun to wear and an extension of your personality, may that be you want to be a mermaid for the day, so it shall be, haha, in all seriousness I think this translates into adulthood seamlessly. This is what inspires me everyday when designing and making clothes, and this is what I think of when I talk about my grannies, they inspire me to be me.
What sort of fabrics did you want to use – you seem to work with reclaimed and vintage prints a lot but what makes this different from previous Loof collections? Are we seeing any new structures along with cuts that have become associated with you as a designer? – Are you playing more with colour or shape or both?
As mentioned earlier I mainly used the actual fabrics from the family chest in my mums house and as always mixed everything in with new linings and fastenings to give a new long life to the garment. When you work with old fabrics you have to take extra care and strengthen it where needed at seams with more tension and I always use interfacing and double up the buttonholes et.c.
This collection I had more bolder cuts, less flowers and more OTT finishes. I want to take my Jennie Lööf to more extreme levels and have started a new line ‘LOVELY by Jennie Lööf’ that will start where Jennie Lööf takes off so they are rather close in design at this moment but will grow apart more and more with time. (the goal is that LOVELY will be more everyday wearables and Jennie Lööf more extravagant.
I loved you fashion film – with the high density of fashion shows in Glasgow along with this culture of sharing everything over the internet do you feel we’ll see more independent designers working within this medium?
Since I did my first film at the beginning of this year I have seen loads of fashion films pop up everywhere and it is great. I do feel that there are a lot of fashion shows and fashion based pop-up events/markets everywhere right now, and this being fashion, everyone wants to be different and want to showcase in new interesting ways. The film is just a fun way to show the movements in the garments as well as theming it up with a song just make it more interesting. I know we will see bigger better and more elaborate ones everywhere soon.
What was it like working on the film? Stressful? Fun? Any on set silliness?
There shall always be silliness on set! Haha, I had such a great team and this day did only go as well as it did because of the amazing people involved. I had set the deadline to do the film on the 28th of May because that is mothers day in Sweden and this movie being based and influenced by my mum and grannies I felt strongly that it had to be done that sunday. Saying so, I was still stitching on the last buttons on the garments whilst shooting and it was very stressful, but mainly fun. It was all filmed in and around my studio at Albert drive and I think it was an unusual day for the Pollocksheild residents seeing tall beautiful girls posing in the middle of the street or trying to walk around in the back garden in giant heels.
Battenburg or cherrybakewells?
Battenburg any time! I will admit that I had never had or even heard of any of these cakes til now and had a taste evening. Bought both by the same baker to be fair and I will admit that the cherrybake is the prettier one but Battenburg definitely the tastier one.
Photographer: Nicklas Emil Höglund
Model:Simona Hrstkova
photo ass: Philip Frowein & Reto Fromm
Styling: Jennie Lööf
Film:Video and editing by www.johnjohnstonphotography.co.uk
Models : Christin Haussman & Julia Bell.
Song by Kyle Andrews – You always make me smile
Seriously how cute is the video? The new collection is adorable and can’t wait to see what comes next – especially Jennie’s new Lovely collection!
You can keep up with Jennie on her website, facebook and tumblr.