HENRIK VIBSKOV LEANS ON THE ODD AND THE SENSORY FOR HIS SS27 COLLECTION
In his 25th year in the industry, Henrik Vibskov elevates a mundane ritual into the crux of his collection: moisturising cream. Each aspect of it — texture, packaging, consistency, viscosity, colour and versatility of use — is dissected and restitched into Keep the Moisture Rising.
Within the grounds of the Danish Design Museum, Henrik Vibskov showed on home turf, maintaining the tradition of keeping Copenhagen Fashion Week kooky and ahead of the curve.
“For as long as Henrik Vibskov can remember, there has been a tube of the same cream somewhere within reach. It is a small daily ritual, squeezed from a tube each morning, that promises more than it can really deliver, yet matters greatly anyway,” said the show notes.
Models navigated a quasi-hypnotic maze of rotating red and white fabric circles, anointed the Umbrico Spirals by Vibskov himself, an outdoor pavilion exhibition custom-built for the occasion. Its title of Umbrico, most likely referential to Umbria or “shade” in Italian, paired with the lounging, sunglass-clad models seated beneath them, gave the unquestionably urban silhouettes a resortwear tinge. Relaxation then establishes itself as the goal when sharply dressed actors appear onto the runway to seemingly conduct spa treatments on the reclining models’ bare feet.
Themes of ritual and repetition threaded their way through the collection's garments, with all-over prints being central to most of the 36 looks. These fluctuate between calculated symmetry in graphic primary colours — the packaging — to wriggling organic tapestried dots, not unlike a creamy texture clogging up facial pores. These visual call-backs to the “awkward space between a creamed body and its surroundings” force the audience, and indeed the wearer, to question how surface-level skin feels against Vibskov's garments.
Patterns continue through to the third dimension with draping and detailing. A-line shirts, jackets and skirts expand from the neckline, as if bursting out of a fresh tube; elsewhere, gathered seams create undulating ribbons, perhaps the most cream-like texture on display. As pointed out in his press release, “Cream has no fixed form of its own; it only takes shape through how it is handled, extruded, whipped, stirred, smoothed.” The same can be said for raw fabric––formless until dutifully and purposefully manipulated.
It is through this constant relationship between source material and the acting forces that interact with it that the designer succeeds in creating a collection with wonderfully odd conceptual musings, but wearable, visually interesting clothing for the modern world. Because, despite its gooey source material (or one's personal feelings on the word moist), it is undeniable that Vibskov is upping the ante.
