Patrick Michael Hughes Senior Fashion Editor Men's Fashion Writer
COPENHAGEN: Peter Lundvald Nielsen hails form Northern Europe. He is a fashion talent with a distinctive creative perspective, revolutionizing Copenhagen Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2023. Nielsen's work are raw, disruptive, modern silhouettes conceived as 'uncompromising visual expressions' linked to Gothic, Punk and gender. His fearless construction and exceptional creative craft are what make up P.L.N., an ascending label from the off grid, underground artistic community in Copenhagen.
This is Nielsen's second collection and his debut runway show at CPHFW. Collection II, is a reflection that out of bleakness, despair there are symbols of hope and a pathway that will transform. The invitation stated"...As I begin to walk the lamb morphs and the legs start growing chest bloating and finally it sheds its wool in thick frayed yarns. As it rises in the wet soil the yarns wrap around, in an eerie and unfamiliar fashion ...As our lips touch, I wake up. I'm on the parking lot of an old abandoned gas factory, How did I get here? My gaze turns to the sight of bodies walking intensely down a long poorly paved road. I have seen these things before.
The lamb is real."
Nielsen's collection 'epiphany' was a successful solidification of a number of fashion elements and foundations sure to set P.L.N. apart in the future. The Balenciaga alumni presented a mostly black, grey and earth toned collection. The silhouettes subtly makes nods and has imprints form the great courier's vocabulary. There were wide open necklines, floating cantilever mid-drifts, tailored jackets with high arm holes featuring capped sleeve shapes and high and low hemlines . These details were mixed with elements of the designer's interest in antique ecclesiastical and religious garments. There were a number of looks which appeared to graze and skim the ground like a destroyed cassock. The playful, creative and point of view elements, were items worn upside down creating interesting drape statements to new ways corsets can be worn on hips and worn backwards upside down.
P.L.N. is constructed with the male form in mind but its elements are extended for all expressions and gender identification. The eclecticism of the collection also included chaps, short leather skirts and open knits with elongated sleeves and flowing fringe. The construction and liberal use of materials, chiefly denim is where one can also see Nielsen's skill. He is a deft at creating several tones of light and dark in a tightly edited palate. There was a arching theme distress garments balanced with the look of coming undone to securely snapped together as well as zipped, laced and un-lace. The fit is also where one can see a high-level of craft and attention to form.
Inevitably this design work will draw comparisons to American designer RICK OWENS' Paris collections and his particular Goth genre. Nielsen's iterations are different in that they are infused with Scandinavian heritage and authenticity of a warrior's boldness, a density in fabrication and handworked construction. Peter Lundvald Nielsen sticks with two guiding poles. 'The first is that they produce a cut and sewn product, that challenges materiality, silhouette and traditional notions of dress. The second is an undiluted narrative, informed by archaic uniforms, sculptural installation and antiquated workwear. It's these elements which establish Nielsen's "balanced dogma for world-building garment making." Nielsen's "uncompromising duality seeks out the uncharted and opaque frontiers of independent fashion practice that oscillates between traditional craft and conceptual vision."
The Spring 2023 runway show was all a performance piece in collaboration with BLACKHEIN (aka Tom Heyes and HEIN) an English artist who has been described as 'bleak and brilliant' is a working class, bloke rapper, dancer and filmmaker . He originally took his movement vocabulary from the way the drug 'spice' was making raging ravers violently contort and rock back and forth. He fuses this with Butoh, a Japanese movement theatre technique .
His lyrics have an automatic rift of phrases, repeated words, screamed phrases and references ranging from drug use to mental health. HEIN erupts during runway show in explosive streams of consciousness at times hard to confront but not distracting from the P.L.N.'s collection. its all in step with the Neilsen's concept of being conceived "in a the middle of a foggy damp field." HEIN's performance is about a northern wasteland, deprivation, isolation and weighty paranoia. He has recently been hired by Kanye West and Martine Rose.
