New On The Catwalk

Kristofer Kongshaug

Kristofer Kongshaug started his fashion career at age 16 as an assistant buyer for the Oslo luxury department store Voga. After working around clothes for a short time, aware his young heart skipped a beat when it came to fashion, his vision kindled like wildfire and in 2002 he began his studies at the Instituto Marangoni in Milan.

" One earth—one sky—we live—we die."

Two years later he had become immensely interested in learning the construction of a garment in the most traditional and (to his noble sense of classic integrity) best way, so he decided to move to Paris and continue at the Eecole de la Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture.

" Kristofer likes to think of his work as pieces of thoughts, his illusion of life. Each garment has a story to tell, each collection a chapter of a book. The dark architectural garments represents shields of passion, body armors to protect the soul within."

Incredibly adept at construction by “ Moulage,” Kristofer develops garments with strong lines and interesting volumes, full of precise detailing and painstaking craftsmanship, but at the same time entirely wearable. This Scandinavian artisan is a new favorite of fashion A-listers in the way he pays almost religious homage to the past while remaining totally in the present and forward thinking.

  • Kristofer Kongshaug Interview

    ___ What do you think women will dress like in 100 years?

    Do you really think we will get to experience 2111 as a human species? If we do, I hope we all are naked, dressed in each other.

    ___ What factors do you feel particularly affects young fashion designers today?

    Commercialism, everything is the same these days. Luxury went basic and high street extreme, and everybody met in the middle and have created havoc for the consumers and buyers. What to buy when everything looks the same? It’s chaos, but out of chaos comes new ideas and some ends, maybe that’s what is needed in the mass suggestion we are living in.

    ___ How do you feel about experimental fashion as art as compared to the fashion necessary to produce for commercial success?

    I don’t. I think as a designer you should create what you feel, then edit it into something edible... things don’t need to be commercial for success nor does an art piece need to be amazing. For me the importance is always that the garment is wearable, that there exists a chance that just a few people out there have been imagining this garment, and they need it to stop their hunger.

    ___ If you could dress one celebrity, who would it be?

    Cate Blanchett. I don’t know why but she gives me this calm feeling. She’s real.

    ___ What is your overall approach to design?

    Make what I feel, another chapter in a book, a new character for the chapter, to evolve with my work and take it to new places. For me, it all comes from within.

    ___ What inspires you?

    Almost everything around me, that’s why you have to be selective, your surroundings shapes you. I have a thinking box I like to sit inside, all closed up with just a small glitch of light coming through a little crack on the side. From there I can observe emotions and shapes passing by on the outside, and clean my thoughts. As least that’s how I imagine it would be if it was real. Imagination, a dreamscape of textures and buildings and human shells passing by, a little parallel universe only I can see.