Story

juli 17, 2015

Text FREDRIK AUSTAD & MAREN SERINE ANDERSEN

This year designer Eli Beate Vevang hit her twenties. One of the first days of summer she also showed us a splendid collection from Oslo National Academy of the Arts. She grew up in the town of Kristiansund, located on the Atlantic Road in Western Norway. In these scenic surroundings Eli Beate studied arts and crafts at her local college while participating in a local theatre group after school. Unfortunately she grew stage fright by the time that she got older, but she has still managed to find her way back into the creative halls of the theatre through her costume design.

«I’ve always been drawing and really love to illustrate people and characters». Vevang told mon Dieu when we paid her a visit after the graduation show. «This has been a non-stop circus. During the past few weeks, time has flown by with a minimum amount of sleep». The brand new designer is obviously happily relieved and also quite shocked that the whole thing is already over.

“I had only sewn a skirt and a top at college before I started at KhiO. I’ve actually never been much into fashion. My interest has rather been surrounded by the world of theatre. I have always felt that theatres are filled with warm and welcoming auras. I guess my obsession started early. My aunt is a retired costume maker from Kristiansund Opera, and I was in a theatre group for many years. Therefore it was a kind of natural path for me to follow further when I started making clothes.”

For the graduation show, the task was to invent a creative universe based on an inspirational trip to Tokyo. She experienced the metropolitan prefecture of Japan together with her classmates in spring this year. “The hardest work was to interpret the material we collected and transform them into actual pieces of clothing,” the twenty year old designer sais. The result was twenty-five hand-drawn outfits presented in her portfolio, and three full looks exhibited on the night of the show.

Vevangs’ collection is inspired by naive and creative minds of people in their early childhood. “It was much about their pattern of behavior,” she tells us. “The way that children so easily get involved in things without skepticism”. The color palette is taken from Japanese children’s books and from the great city of Tokyo. The painting casket she had when she was younger also plays an essential role with its pure and untouched colors of yellow, green and red. The materials are chosen by observations in the everyday life of people in the urban city. We find easily wearable pieces in jersey and canvas and denim. The collection basically consist of fabrics that are made for children to move in, painted, bleached and colored by the designer herself. Every print is from Vavang’s own imagination.

“I love to sit on a cafe in the city and observe people passing by,” the designer says. “During my research I saw a lot of citizens wearing denim, college sweaters and backpacks. I always tried to figure out what they carried with them based on the way they were dressed. The visible buckles on some of the pieces are actually inspired by the baby carriers that a lot of parents in the city carry with them”.

«To physically complete the collection is one thing», Vevang tells us. Despite the technical aspect, it turned out to be the very process from beginning to end that was the real obstacle. Not only was it challenging and exhausting to work all those long hours in the night, but to step out of the comfort zone was hard for her.

However difficult it seemed at the time, Vevang’s skills and courage have now grown a lot. “I forced myself to draw with my left hand so the illustrations would get an imperfect touch, like it was made by a child. I’m quite the perfectionist; so to start painting on the clothes was pretty hard for me in the beginning. I felt like I was tainting my dear pieces. That was before I learnt how fun it was to play with my design, and it really grew on me with time”.

During the process of making the collection, the teachers at KHiO offer the students a generous amount of help and advice on how to develop a solid concept and how to expand their visions to become a part of their reality. This is very helpful, Vevang tells us, but for her collection she needed something more than the standard guidance.

“I asked my friend’s little sister to have a look at my sketchbook after I finished my first drawings. She is only six years old, and that was exactly the perspective that I wanted. As she flapped through the sketchbook, her imagination produced different stories belonging to each and every picture. Suddenly the sketches represented different families and people living in the buildings that I had photographed during my Tokyo adventure. She did not twirl her mind trying to figure out what it all meant, she just looked at it as an enjoyable storybook”.

Finishing another year of clothing and costume design is only a small step on the way towards future success for the young up and coming designer. This might not come as a shock, but Vevang’s dream is to design costumes for the world of theatre. The editors of mon Dieu wish her all the best and are utterly exited to see what awaits this fine talent in the future.

All photos in courtesy of Eli Beate Vevang & Erik Edland.