The old adage about an apple a day keeping the doctor away has lost its bite during the pandemic. The fruit’s symbolism, however, remains ripe in the collection created by the trio behind Avenue, an arty, unisex Oslo-based brand. In the label’s new fall collection, the familiar rounded shape is cut out of black fabric, strung with other apples, and layered to mysterious effect over an adjustable white shirt.
The look isn’t that far off from an abbreviated body harness, though that wasn’t the team’s reference. Says Ingvild Abrahamsen, “We like the shape. An apple is a really traditional food—a common, everyday fruit—but it’s also the forbidden fruit. Snow White gets poisoned by the apple; it’s kind of a metaphor for the darker side of life. [These days] we see there’s a lot of tragedy and dystopia, so we liked to use the apple as a symbol of this common thing [that has] also a lot of things underneath. I think that kind of represents the brand as well; we get inspired by maybe darker things.” That makes sense in light of the fact that the three friends—Abrahamsen, a designer; Gustaf Gyllenhammar, a designer with an economics degree whose family has been in the textile business since 1927; and musician Espen Follestad—all met in Oslo’s hardcore punk scene.
Music, particularly of the ’80s and ’90s alternative genres, is a constant reference. If you wanted to you could read a bit of grunge into the brand’s striped sweaters, punk into a fantastic animal-print coat, or even rave into a layered, slightly droopy silhouette. Even if some of the pieces have what the brand describes as a certain “nostalgia and grittiness” and somewhat of a vintage feel, they are designed to be future heirlooms. The team avoids synthetics and works only with natural fibers and materials, like cotton cashmere and shearling, which takes them out of the basics category.
The trio starts with familiar silhouettes and plays with the shapes—both to create unisex fits and for aesthetics. Avenue has a tendency toward a layered look, and their tied-together pieces can be customized. Fall 2020’s apples were an evolution of the tied-together apron-like looks from spring 2020, which had a vague link to Paco Rabanne’s pieces. When connected, these individual pieces, some printed with words, made statements like “sensitive being.” There’s an intriguing backstory. These panels were inspired by A4-shaped paper, and were, explains Abrahamsen, “kind of an homage to the analog age, when everything was done on paper. [Now] that everything is going digital, you don’t need it anymore.” Or do we? The promise of a new start that a white page offers is looking really good in this moment of reset.
