Special K

The last model has tottered off the catwalk, the speaker system belts out the final bar of ‘Fever’ by Peggy Lee, and the crowd file out. The event is declared a “fabulous success.”

Backstage, the production of getting the supermodels out of their clothing begins. Ten-inch Manola Blahnik stilettos are detached from model feet with surgical precision. A small fire brigade cuts the models out of their rubber Jean Paul Gaultier creations before asphyxiation sets in. And a crane stands by, ready to hoist the tonne-weight Philip Treacy hat cargo from their heads.

Free from all their fine regalia, what will the models now dress themselves in? According to fashion designer Filippa Knutsson, clothes like hers.

“My clothes are very far away from the worlds that Karl Lagerfeld, Vivienne Westwood et al inhabit,” Knutsson explains. “It never really interested me to do very flamboyant or extreme items. I’m more interested in doing things that real people wear – the sort that the models put on in real life.”

Knutsson is here launching the Filippa K fashion label in Ireland. Already one of the best known fashion designers in Scandinavia, she is now carving great big inroads into the rest of Europe, expanding into Austria, Holland, Germany, Belgium, and, now, Ireland.

And she’s happy to be here. “This is my first time in Ireland,” she grins, “and I really like it, lovely people, nice old city. Swedish people are quite trendy but they tend to follow one fashion at a time and are quite collective in their thinking, which can be a bit boring. So I like cities like this where it’s mixed.”

As the brains behind and the face in front of her label, she’s a good representative. A stunning blonde, she exudes that quintessential Scandinavian charm, style and wholesome beauty that we associate with ABBA, a large proportion of Bond girls, and Timotei Shampoo ads. As far apart from the Vivienne Westwood/Karl Lagerfeld prototype in appearance as she is in her collections – she’s dressed in slacks, a well-cut black blouse, and a black woollen shawl – she comes across as a distinctly un-diva-like fashion designer.

“I was always more interested in style than in fashion, if that makes any sense,” she explains. “I’m interested in the way different people wear clothes and in personal style, rather than what’s ‘in’, what’s ‘out’, and all that. The clothes I design are very easy and relaxed and, when you’re wearing them, you don’t wear this big sign saying ‘Fashion Victim’ as well.”

The Filippa K fall collection is comprised of “classics with a simple, uncomplicated and relaxed appeal – sporty details and fabrics, traditional tailoring with a modern twist and Asian inspired cuts.” Knutsson pauses before commenting, “If I was going to describe Filippa K in three words I’d say simplicity, style and quality.”

The style factor seems to be genetic. Knutsson’s grandfather, Isak Gustav Clason, was one of Sweden’s most significant architects and parents Lars Knutsson and Martina Clason founded Gul & Bla, Sweden’s hugely influential chain of clothing stores.

And so the family line continues. At age 12, Knutsson was “sneaking forbidden shoes to school”, at 21 she returned from her London schooling to Stockholm to learn her father’s fashion business, and at 27 she found herself at her kitchen table, threading the beginnings of the Filippa K line through her sewing machine.

“It was my father’s cancer and his decision to close his business that signified the beginning of Filippa K,” she says. “During my time at Gul & Bla I was dedicated to the company but I also had my own ideas. So when he closed his stores I dared to take that step.”

Building up a new business, though, was tough and Knutsson empathises with fashion designers starting up in small countries like Ireland. “I switched on this survivor instinct,” she says. “I just thought ‘This has got to work. I know I have a good idea’. And so myself, and my husband at the time, Patrick Kihlborg, the Managing Director of Filippa K, began to build up this company.

“We started on a small scale,” she remembers. “We sat in the kitchen and did the work there. Then we met potential customers, presented our ideas, and it took off.”

When men began to try on her womenswear, Filippa K Menswear was born. “We thought “God! We have to start doing this for men,” she says, “and it’s really developed since because it’s become much more legitimate for men to be interested in wearing more distinct clothing now.”

Then what is the inspiration that breathes this distinction into the clothes? “Everything,” replies Knutsson. “Everything, everything. I woke up this morning and I started writing madly. All of these ideas. I think they stemmed from travelling to a new place – broadening my mind and senses. Colours, too, give me loads of ideas – I’m hooked on them. And people are always inspiring me. It could be any kind of people, not just fashion people – it could be an old couple wearing coats from the ’60s. I just let things pile up in me and then they come out. I’m not searching for inspiration I’m just absorbing all the time.”

Now, though, haven’t we reached a point in fashion where it’s difficult to have an original thought?

“Yes,” Knutsson agrees. “I don’t think we’re ever going to see any new shocking fashion statements or period of complete revolution of fashion, like the ’20s or ’60s. A lot of designers these days are trying to do very extreme and abstract stuff. But it has all been seen in some form before. After all, what more can you possibly do with two arms and two legs?

“As a designer you don’t have to be part of that big, brash, competitive, Haute Couture world if you don’t want to,” Knutsson continues. “There are lots of people in the fashion business that I wouldn’t associate with too much – they’re not my type. And you don’t have to pile your money into advertising, or try to shock, or to invent new styles. I think a better way to go about fashion is to produce good products that people will talk about – that’s the honest way of thinking in the long run. Treating your customers as intelligent people and not trying to sell them a shallow image with no substance at all.”