Maximalism, Memories and a Touch of Darkness

Colour, fantasy and two decades of unapologetic maximalism: During Oslo Runway Norwegian designer Fam Irvoll marked her anniversary with a new collection and a return to some of her most memorable looks. Amid all the playfulness and colour, she also invited something altogether darker onto the runway: an emerging young designer, Esra Şahin who’s label is named House of Meldrøy.

It has never been particularly difficult to recognise a Fam Irvoll design. While Scandinavian fashion has built much of its international identity around black, beige, clean lines and, more recently, the relentless pursuit of quiet luxury, Irvoll has spent the past two decades breaking all the rules. For 20 years, she has created her own maximalist universe of vivid colour, humour, pop culture, exaggerated proportions and clothes that can appear to have emerged from a surreal fairy tale rather than a conventional wardrobe. And last Friday, it was time to celebrate.

20 Years of Fam

The anniversary show was both a presentation of where Irvoll finds herself today and a look back at the journey that brought her here. Her new collection continued the designer’s distinctive visual language, where fashion has never simply been about dressing the body, but about creating characters. In Fam’s world, you are allowed to be too much. In fact, being too much is often precisely the point.

This time, however, the new was joined by the past. A special “Best of Fam” section that ended the evening revisited some of the designer’s most characteristic creations from across her career, serving as a reminder of just how consistently Irvoll has followed her own path in an industry that can change its aesthetic identity almost as quickly as it changes its hemlines. (some old classics from Irvolls work below)

The show’s most personal moment, however, came when Irvoll’s two daughters appeared on the runway. Suddenly, the anniversary became something more than a retrospective. It was almost a family photograph in motion: 20 years of a designer’s career unfolding on the same catwalk as the next generation stepped, quite literally, into her world.

Enter the Darkness

But between her new collection and the best of-section, the mood changed, as Irvoll had not only used her anniversary to celebrate her own history but chosen to share the spotlight with the emerging designer House of Meldrøy. Fam Irvoll decided to share the runway with this up and comming designer, whom she discovered earlier this year when she was sitting in the jury of Oslo’s fashion college Esmod, evaluating all the graduation collections.

“I’ve always rooted for people who dare to be different, think outside the box, and aren’t too concerned with what everyone else is doing. When I was planning my 20th-anniversary show, I wanted to use the opportunity to champion another, emerging designer. House of Meldrøy will present their graduate collection from ESMOD ” Fam wrote on her Instagram. (The collection is pictured below)

If Fam Irvoll inhabits a world of candy colours, cartoons and explosions of exuberance, House of Meldrøy appears to exist somewhere long after midnight. The aesthetic was dark, gothic and at times almost grotesque. Black upon black. Dramatic silhouettes. Figures that might have emerged from a Victorian house in mourning, a vampire film or a particularly elegant nightmare. The debut collection is called A Kiss Is the Beginning of Cannibalism, and marks the beginning, the first chapter in the MELDRØY universe. According to Fam Irvoll it is “an exploration of desire, dependency, vulnerability and transformation, where the boundaries between intimacy, attraction and discomfort, protection and invasion gradually shift, erode and ultimately collapse. It explores how people repeatedly find themselves trapped in a parasitic symbiosis, and how our dependence on the comfort it provides can, in the end, lead to collapse”.

There was something both romantic and unsettling about the young collection: a beauty that did not particularly care about being pretty or pleasing. Instead, the clothes seemed intent on transforming the body: elongating it, concealing it, making it somehow strange. Vampiric elegance, horror and avant-garde fashion collided in a universe where beauty constantly teetered on the edge of something frightening, with amazing models who interacted with the audience in a rather disturbing performance.

From Candyland to Gothic Horror

On paper, Fam Irvoll and House of Meldrøy could hardly be further apart aesthetically. Where one turns the lights all the way up and lets the glitter rain, the other moves in darkness. Yet beneath the surface, there is a curious kinship between them as both use fashion as a form of world-building. Neither seems primarily interested in simply making “beautiful clothes”. They create characters, moods and fantasy worlds — and both appear considerably more interested in provoking a reaction than in designing the perfect discreet wardrobe. That is why it felt so appropriate for Irvoll to give space to a young designer with such an uncompromising point of view, because beneath all the colour, her own career has always been about something similar: the freedom to be different.

More Is More

Fam Irvoll entered Norwegian fashion with an aesthetic that was almost the antithesis of Scandinavian minimalism. With an education that included Esmod in Oslo and Central Saint Martins in London, as well as experience working with designers including Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen, she developed a visual language in which extremely skilful craftsmanship collided with pop, kitsch, humour and fantasy. It would eventually take her work far beyond Norway, with her designs worn by international stars including Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry.

But 20 years later, perhaps the most interesting thing is not who has worn Fam Irvoll but the fact that Fam continues to be uncompromising and bold. At a time when trends accelerate at dizzying speed and fashion houses can seemingly reinvent their identities from one season to the next, there is something wonderfully refreshing about a designer who continues to insist on inhabiting her own universe.

Friday’s anniversary, then, was not simply an exercise in nostalgia. It was about continuity and about what comes next. On the same runway we saw Irvoll’s past, her new collection, her own daughters and a young designer representing something altogether different: from candy land to gothic horror. Twenty years on, this creative powerhouse has no intention of toning herself down. And fashion is all the more interesting for it.

All photos: Styletalkmagazine