Designer Focus: Félicie Eymard Ericsdottir

How did you get into fashion? 

Coming from a product design background and recently entering the world of fashion, I realized how much innovative potential the fashion industry has to offer. I have always been fascinated by how people behave with what they wear and people's interaction with the world around them. Interaction is at the core of what I try to dig into and explore with my work, and as a product designer I wanted to create an intimate relationship between objects and their user. And what is more intimate than a garment?

What made you decide to start your own label?

Freedom.

How do you define your particular style and aesthetic? 

Comfort and freedom are essential to me. I am trying to focus on the user’s experience by making garments that listen to their needs while allowing the user to respond to them. These wearable objects aim to be like an animal skin that adapts to different environment or mood and where various parts of the clothes emerge and vanish to transform and reveal hidden layers.

Who or what are your inspirations and muses? 

Martin Margiela is my absolute hero. But if I start talking about him I won't stop. I would say that people inspire me, specially when I travel because that is when uncommon behaviors surprise me most. Travelling is a huge part of my creative process.

Tell us a bit about your recent collection. What’s the story behind it?

Metamorphosis proposes a new way of creating a story around wearable objects by identifying and solving problems. With the belief that cities are accumulationg more and more people, where space is a luxury, where nomadism is becoming the norm and where climate is continuously changing, the garment we wear need to adapt to these mutations. Metamorphosis established a principle and demonstrate this around questions of acclimatization, comfort and freedom so that each of these garments exists as a family around these values.

Do you think you have a responsibility as a designer to respond to the social and political issues of our time?

The world we live in is constantly evolving and adapting to daily challenges and mutations we are facing. New technologies impact how we eat, interact and move—but rarely on what we wear. I believe in a concept of innovative garments that brings smart solutions and comfort to our everyday life. Why should garments only be technical and innovative when we go skiing, running, or hiking? Why not start looking at the garments we wear everyday? Challenge them. Observe how people behave with what they wear and embrace those behaviors.

What is the biggest misconception about being a designer?

Probably that design is the same as art. A designer has to observe, interpret, and understand the world she lives in and designing is her way of making a change.

What do you feel are the most important ingredients in building a brand?

Unconditional passion and responding well to failure.

If you could change one thing about fashion, what would it be?

Fashion can be too much about trends. Wearable can be so much more than trends. It can evolve, adapt to new environments, new ways of living. There is so much to explore, dissect and digest to create new interactions, new typologies, and new behaviors.

What excites you the most about the future of fashion? 

Creating a new path that can impact people’s lives today and tomorrow. Fashion can provoke a rupture. An alternative, a new way of living.