Nynne Kunde
is fresh on the fashion scene, having started her brand barely two years ago after graduating from Istituto Marangoni in London and winning Womenswear Designer of the Year 2018.
The 'Nynne Kunde'
brand strives to show that business is not just a male sector; women don't have to mirror men in the workplace with their clothing styles. Instead, they can do things their way. The clean cuts and bold silhouettes make the working woman feel confident yet elegant in society's power roles.
Nynne is always exploring powerful women of the past to create styles that compliment the women of today; the artistic works of Joan Mitchell inspired Nynne's newly launched AW20 collection. It features many of the brand signatures, such as the elastic waist Diana Dress and the Chris Off Shoulder Blouse, all reimagined in an earth-toned palette. However, there is a fiery flair to this collection; a few statement pieces in a sunset dipped pattern of red, orange, and peach. Nynne Kunde has always allowed women to feel confident, but one might say this new collection takes it a step further and encourages women to feel powerful - it has a little added attitude and boldness.
ROUGH
was thrilled to speak to Nynne Kunde about the whirlwind of starting her brand, her creative inspirations and the launch of her AW20 collection.
ROUGH ONLINE: Firstly, tell ROUGH how it all started - how did the Nynne Kunde brand start?
I went to the Istituto Marangoni in London for my degree and I won Womenswear Designer of the Year when I graduated in 2018, afterwards I got scouted for fashion week in Vancouver, so I had to create twenty looks but at university it had been about six looks… So, suddenly everything took off. We got attention from magazines and PR; the brand slowly came about because of the hype. I always wanted my own brand but I had to figure out the timing, so, I started the brand in August 2018.
Having a brand and being a fashion designer is not really the same thing, because if you just want to do designs it’s easier to work for a brand. But with your own brand you become an accountant and a manager; the designing is the least of it all. All the vision and direction is mine, and we’re a small brand so it works and we enjoy doing it ourselves, I come from an entrepreneur family so I enjoy that feeling.
ROUGH ONLINE: Your brand is exclusively womenswear as we know, can you tell ROUGH about designing clothes for women and what that means to you?
Something I really want to represent is women. It has to be for women - working women and daily women - the brand has to be wearable but also give them confidence. I have always had a love of women who are fighting for what they want and I always look at the suit aspect; the women in politics and how they dress, so, I wanted to design dresses that still have the power of a tailored suit. That was our starting point.
We are all about the silhouette and the cut of the clothes, we want things fitting nicely - women are shaped so differently so we always try to keep in mind different body shapes. My signature dress, the Diana Dress, actually fits mostly everybody because of the elastic waist; I always have these things in mind. And with social media we get to see how it looks on people, how they style it themselves and what they think, it’s great to see people transform your clothes to suit them personally.
We want to support women, for women. I want women to feel confident in the designs but also relaxed and comfortable in them. I’m always looking at how we can innovate women’s fashion, for example I like to look at textiles, my most popular dress is actually made out of micro-fibre fabrics, it’s a really easy, absorbent fabric; you can spill something on it and just wipe it straight off.
ROUGH ONLINE: Although your AW20 collection just launched, your SS20 collection is also available on the NYNNE site, can you tell ROUGH the inspiration behind that collection?
For the SS20 collection I looked back at the 1940s at some of the styles of leading ladies in Noir films, like Joan Crawford and Betty Davis - all these really strong characters, and thought ‘what is it that makes them fabulous?’ And at the same time I also looked at working women in factories, because there are different ways of having strong women around; those we see everyday in movies can have such a strong signal but at the same time the working women in the 40s were amazing.
Our brand is classic but it’s also twisted into something modern. I like to look at vintage because it’s nice to see what has been done and look at it with a modern aspect. So, combining this working woman and a glamorous woman that was what that collection as all about - how to modernise both.
The women of those times - they were elegant but they were badass - there was more to them than just being pretty. The roles they play in those films had so much attitude, it’s a feminist stamp I guess.
ROUGH ONLINE: What were the inspirations for the AW20 collection that you’ve recently launched?
The AW20 col lection colour scheme is from a painting I saw in New York at the Guggenheim by Joan Mitchell. Joan Mitchell was in the abstract expressionist movement, and it’s not often you hear about the women in those movements because there’s so few of them; that’s why I researched her for the AW20 collection. It’s a constant inspiration of mine; a time or movement where there’s women coming through to pave the way for people in the future. Nowadays we have a lot of very exciting and important artists but back then it was a small circle of men. I always get obsessed with periods of time, and then either an art movement or architecture movement or a specific painting. I research the people - well, mostly the women - behind those movements and look at what they stood for, who they were, what life was like for them.
When balancing commercial with fashion there’s always a struggle, because you want to create something new and interesting but it has to be wearable and I think that’s what we tried to do with the AW20 collection - having the interesting details and colour but keeping it in a shape where people can wear it. It’s a collection I’m so happy with!
ROUGH ONLINE: Your style blends Nordic and London inspirations, can you explain why those places are so important to you and why it’s important to represent places and culture in fashion?
I’m from Copenhagen but I moved to London when I was nineteen. London is where I grew into who I am as a creative individual, it’s a place that’s important for me because it made me who I am as a designer. When I started as a designer Danish style was very clean lined and minimal and it was all black blue or white - that’s not the case anymore. But I think it’s still a more minimalist style than what you typically see in London.
I’ve always been more flamboyant than my friends and then I came to London and met so many people from different places in the world; there were so many interesting and different ideas that helped when finding an identity.
It’s important, in general, to have culture in fashion to inspire everybody. It’s important to explore, not copy culture, but figure out how you can get inspired and take something from it to expand your own perspective and horizons creatively and in life.
ROUGH ONLINE: What are your hopes for the future with your brand?
We want to expand the brand organically and take it at our own pace. We don’t want to be another big ‘fast fashion’ brand and sometimes when there’s a big demand you can get out of control with what your brand means to you - we want to keep a pace where we provide great products.
We are moving the headquarters back to Copenhagen in August. We’re getting a lot of attention and we want to focus on quality and vision which will be easier to do from Copenhagen as it’s calmer and the communication will be easier.
But in the future maybe we could move into jewellery and bags - thats the things about being creative, I was looking into doing bags but I had really good mentors who were like ‘no you have to focus on just one thing at the start of your brand.’ So, it’s very important that we focus on our main goal, but maybe one day we will expand to accessories. And of course maybe expand in the U.S, having a store in New York would be what I would hope for the future as well.
But right now, the pace is so fast in the fashion industry it brought us back to thinking of who are we, what do we represent and what do we want to put out there.
