The H&M Studio AW20 collection – aptly named «The Refined Rebel» – has a definite bohemian flair and it is inspired by unconventional people and individuals who have no need nor desire to to fit in. The figure head for this type of vibe the H&M designers dived deep into our past to find – and she’s not a sixties or a seventies wild child – but a brave British author by the name of Violet Paget. Born in France by British parents Violet Paget spent most of her professional time in her estate at Florence, and who adopted the pseudonym Vernon Lee soon after her first publication.
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Like several other prominent Victorian writers, the enigmatic and forward-thinking Paget wrote under a male pen name both to stop being slut shamed but more important – to protect their literature from being belittled. Her eccentric and bold style apparently fits well with our modern desire to defy fashion and just wear what the hell we like. This is also why you won’t find any supermodels in the AW20 Studio campaign. Instead the Swedish retail giant have lined up a group of stylish individuals that each redefines fashion in their own way: Barbie Ferreira (above) who’s known from the HBO-series «Euphoria», German fashion editor Veronika Heilbrunner, the English singer Celeste, American model Alton Mason, Chinese influencer Mia Kong and – our cover picture: the Young Emperors, the style savvy French couple who’s taken Instagram and TikTok by storm during the corona crisis.
Styletalk: What sets this collection apart and why these muses to present it?
Kristin Fjeld: The Studio-collection is our high fashion-line, designed by our own design team, and each presentation we like to bring something new and fresh to the table. The aim is to excite and surprise our customers, give them something unexpected – this time by giving different people from all corners of the world the chance to put together outfits according to their own unique styles.
The AW2020 Studio Muses who hail from all different corners of the world were given the freedom to interpret the new collection and style the pieces according to their own individual taste. It’s a new fresh way to present a collection, completely void of the traditional professional model/stylist teams. Ann-Sofie Johanson, Creative Advisor in H&M hope this will inspire us all to have fun, celebrate our uniqueness and rebel against any rules of fashion when we build our wardrobes.
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Styletalk: Is fashion as we know it dead?
Kristin Fjeld: «No, H&M loves fashion! But, what’s fashionable in 2020? Today fashion means to go your own way, style yourself according to your own tastes and wear clothes that makes you feel great.»
Styletalk: So, there’s no Bella Hadids and no Kendall Jenners in this campaign – would you say the era of the professional fashion model is over?
Kristin Fjeld: «Today there’s so many media channels and such a variety of exciting people who all present a more diverse picture of what style and beauty is, regarding personality, ethnicity, size and so forth. To be relevant to our customers we need to reflect this.»
Through the years H&M have proven to be quick to sniff the zeitgeist and be up on the latest trends so we thought it only right to ask Kristin Fjeld, Communications Manager H&M Norway and Iceland what this new idea means, both for the consumers and for the fashion business at large:
All photos by curtesy of H&M
