Swedish Fashion: Exploring a New Identity

This exhibition showcases a new wave of Swedish design talent, with the work of thirteen fashion and jewellery designers who challenge the stereotypical picture of Swedish fashion as blonde, functional and minimal.

Since the late 1990s there has been a growing sense of a new guard emerging – putting the country on the map with a burgeoning number of fashion labels and designers.

Created by the Swedish Institute and specially enhanced and adapted for the FTM, this exhibition showcases the bold, the avant-garde and the surprising.

In addition to Swedish fashion, the FTM is also showcasing a number of new Swedish jewellery designers. The art of jewellery design taps into a basic instinct in the human animal – that of adornment. The talented jewellery designers showcased in this exhibition produce just such a response with their work, be it witty or understated or disconcerting. These designer-makers, based in the Swedish principle of good design and strong aesthetics, tap into personal experiences to create one-of-a-kind treasures, working with both precious materials and found objects to fashion pieces that operate on many different levels. Referencing nature, the body, everyday items and curiosities these works enchant the viewer, connecting the objects to their own half-remembered dreams.