Nicholas Nybro launched his line in 2011. The Copenhagen-based designer is specializing in conceptual clothing, costumes and art direction. His ready-to-wear clothes and fashion photos often pose tribute to diversity and ask (for some of us, uncomfortable) questions of collective identity, such as “what is Danishness?”.
For part of his 2016 Spring Summer collection, Nybro’s storytelling drew on childhood and summer, thoughts of bees and harvest time. You can watch Catrine Zorn’s video of Nicholas Nybro 2016 Spring Summer collection here.
AN IDENTITY WRITTEN IN RAFFIA
One of the exhibition’s compositions by Nicholas Nybro consists of a silhouette wearing a long-sleeved shirtdress with stripes as well as a cotton headdress adorned with a flowing abundance of raffia. It is wearing a raffia skirt and holding a huge chunk of the material. A second figure is wearing a sleeveless shirt and also dons a raffia skirt, leaning backwards at an impossible angle.
The two creations were presented under the name Denmark on my Mind at the Danish MINDCRAFT exhibition in Milan (Italy) in 2016. According to a commentator, the garments represent “[a] celebration of light as the defiant contrast to a dark background. In response to a feeling that fear and alienation is affecting the political climate and changing the Denmark he knows, Nicholas Nybro chooses to embrace his Danish identity and celebrate the qualities he is proud of. In the two pieces that make up Denmark on my Mind, this is represented by a symbolic celebration of idyllic summer evenings in Denmark where the light gradually shimmers and fades but never quite gives way to darkness. The two pieces transform the body’s silhouette, as dress and body fuse into one and are transformed into a sculpture. The main material is raffia, which is sewn onto the fabric in dense rows and subsequently cut into shape, like a hairdresser working on a hairdo. The raffia is combined with striped cotton fabric, reminiscent of traditional peasant shirts. In combination with the sculpted raffia, the overall effect sparks associations to fragrant hay, harvest time and idyllic summer”.
