Beate Karlsson has been on an uphill journey since she joined Avavav. Hired as creative director in 2021, early last year she joined forces with fellow Swede, co-owner, and CEO Johanna Blom to buy the (now female-led) business. This was not a one-and-done process, but involved lots of legal wrangling and resetting terms with suppliers and producers, which diverted Karlsson’s attention away from making clothes. The title of last season’s “unfinished” line up was No Time to Design, No Time to Explain. Finally on firmer ground, the new collection was more robust than previous ones.
Karlsson has relied on noise to bring attention to this small, independent brand. A keen observer, manipulator, and satirist of digital culture, she crafted a number of clever, viral shows (models falling, garments falling off midway down the runway) that were more about concept than clothes. The result of the success of these presentations is, said the designer on a call, that “the brand is bigger than, or more known, than the product at this point, which is something that had to [change] now.” And indeed, the product range was extended beyond the hoodies (fall’s were shoulderless), T-shirts (some were extended into slightly fitted dresses), and caps Avavav is most known for. The brand’s “filthy rich” slogan was back, as were money prints; new was more of a focus on tailoring. There was a raw edge chalk-striped suit, and a similarly (un)finished overcoat that revealed the three layers of its construction, a hooded Oxford shirt dress, a spade-cross necktie, and a blazer with pleated tucks on one side that created a pleasing asymmetry.
The button-loop paneled skirt of the past was reconsidered in a pencil silhouette with spiked hem. Karlsson, who designed accessories at Coach and Pyer Moss, and is known for her “finger shoes” (which Rick Owens has been spotted in) introduced a scalloped shell bag for fall. Her pants game is on point. The acid-washed denims that are a theme of the season appeared here in acid green. Smocking and tucked pleats were used on dresses, sleeve- and pant-hems, adding textural interest to flared silhouettes. The collection read as vital as it did young. In truth, Karlsson’s tweaks on the familiar have the everyday realness that is the season’s mantra, at a price point that is more down to earth than stratospheric.
Even as she put more focus on design, Karlsson didn’t abandon showmanship. The brand has elicited extreme reactions (typical online discourse was projected on the wall behind the catwalk) and for fall the aim was to conduct a kind of social experiment based on the designer’s belief that “the internet is the future, but at the same time, it’s like we’ve gone back to medieval times; people are just expressing their opinions in very unreal, primitive ways.” Imagining the catwalk functioning as a “walk of atonement,” Karlsson created a garbage-strewn set and planted some agitators in the crowd. “The thesis is to put online haters into a physical space,” she explained, “and see if they would [when prompted] interact and start throwing things; kind of stoning-the-witch actions.” (The models were briefed in advance.) The idea was that the white finale dress would be colored by the garbage hitting it. Essentially Karlsson was trolling the trolls. Whether you read this as a gimmick or as sly manipulation of the system, this designer’s fluency in digital culture marks her out as one of a new guard in fashion that are challenging existing, and sometimes outmoded, systems in ways that make you stop and think.
