Amanda Svart

Grey Sheep

@amandasvart

Location

london / United Kingdom

University

royal college of art

Graduation year

2016

Contact

Amanda Svart is an MA Fashion Design Womenswear graduate from Royal College of Art in London where she graduated July 2016. She received her Fashion Design BA Honours with First Class Honours from University of Westminster in 2014 and her final collection was selected for display at the Ambika P3 Westminster Fashion Show. Amanda has worked as an intern at Lanvin in Paris, Marc Jacobs in New York, Viktor & Rolf in Amsterdam, and Roksanda Illincic and Meadham Kirchhoff in London.

Central to Amanda’s design manifesto is the belief that women who reveal their sensitive, fragile side will be perceived as stronger. Central to Amanda’s design aesthetics is the notion that originality, choice of fabrics, and quality of finishings should make dressing in and wearing garments a sensual experience, instilling a confident feeling of being in control while playing the balance between reveal and conceal. In January 2016 she represented RCA at Imagine Talents Kopenhagen Fur Show with her fur coat design, and she is currently one of ten finalists in the industry acclaimed Hyères Fashion and Photography Festival. Alongside diverse exhibitions and professional panel discussions, it hosts an international competition for emerging designers. The festival is a prestigious opportunity with CHANEL as a major partner and Paco Rabanne's Creative Director chairing the jury this year. The finalists will showcase their collections over the four day event – held at the beautiful Villa Noailles in the South of France – before a winner is chosen. Previous winners have included Viktor & Rolf, Felipe Oliveira Baptista and Anthony Vaccarello.

Latest Collection

Fragile Boundaries - RCA MA Collection

My Master’s collection explores the freedom within the constraints imposed upon us. I have studied the dialectic between the innate human urge for freedom versus reactions to confinement caused by constraints imposed on women by situational forces. I have drawn upon commonalities of expression of women committed to old-fashioned institutional care, the defiance of the female characters in Ingemar Bergman’s 60s Trilogy, and frustrations felt by many women in contemporary society. I am fascinated by the response of strong women who, faced with structures, authority or tradition that cannot currently overpowered, remain defiant, determined not to have their will curbed, preserving strength to eventually break free of these constraints.

In modern abstract art I find resonance for these ideas in the work of Royal College of Art Alumni and sculptor Richard Deacon. He frequently uses sections of hard materials held together by screws and rivets to create organically rounded, undulating, but still rigid frames defining boundaries around open spaces. In this context I interpret these frames as a set of restrictions imposed on us defining our freedom to manoeuvre as the open space within their perimeters. Deacon’s boundaries are, however static, fragile in that they are often quite thin and consist of many small parts mechanically held together like links in a chain. I have incorporated sections of disintegrated frames in my collection to symbolise that a strong woman has the power to break her confines but will nevertheless still be faced with part restrictions she has to learn to cope with in current society.

Photographer: Jovana Mladenovic
Model: Helen Babic
Hair & Make-Up: Penny Black