Pollute Me
Fill in the blank: Solitude Studios is ____.
An energy, first and foremost. It is a creative outlet for both of us. It is a place for well-being, calmness, balance, self-reflectiveness & confidence.
Fill in the blank: Solitude Studios is not ____.
A fashion brand. We don’t work from a point where we consider the latest fashion, nor trends. We build our universe from a more conceptual point of view. Telling a story. Our goal is to position ourselves in such a way that we make collections in our own pace. You know, the way you patiently await your favorite musician’s next album? That’s how it should feel waiting for our next collection. That, for us, is the most sustainable way of making garments. Environmentally, of course, but also for us on a personal level. We want to feed the culture, not consumerism.
How would you describe the idea behind Solitude Studios?
As aforementioned, this is a creative outlet for us. It is about having fun and expressing ourselves. Exploring and expanding our own limits aesthetically, but also in craftsmanship. And personally, for that matter. We both love garments and craftsmanship. That is what joined us together. That being said, we won’t ever limit ourselves to exclusively making garments. We have already discussed other media as well. We want Solitude to always be a place for creating whatever we feel like, on any given day. Freedom, in a sense. We try to find a place for Solitude Studios in the industry, where we can interact with the capitalist world, but on our own terms. We want to put garments on people, but not at any cost. The bottom line is to create something, that we believe contributes to what our world needs, or is in lack of.
What is the relationship between nature and design?
It is a tightly-knit relationship. We are both fascinated by nature. And our relationship to nature as humans. It is far too easy to forget, especially living in a major city, that every single resource we use, derives from nature. We are intrigued by the way humans try to tame nature, and how nature responds to it. Climate change is probably the largest-scale example of this. But we also study it in more banal contexts, like when grass shoots up through the pavement. Or when a person turns a tree into a table. The way we shape our garments is vastly based on organic shapes. Our color palette also. We have made a promise to ourselves that in the near future, we will solely use natural ways of dying.
Solitude Studios describes itself as a brand that makes “the World a funnier place to be.” To you, what is the ‘funniest’ aspect of design?
The freedom and exploration. A thought we have been discussing lately is the perceptions of shape. Most of us have an idea of how a building looks, or a shirt, or even a vase. And how it certainly does not look. The unsettling feeling of seeing an object that contradicts your immediate perception of it is something we are very fascinated by.
Some say the world will end in fire, others in ice. How do you think the world will end?
‘Our world’ will end, but the world won’t.
There are so many intricacies and layers to Solitude Studios’ clothing. How do you know when a piece is completed?
Most of the time, it is a question of: Does the piece express the story we want it to? Take, for example, our jersey dress from this collection. The collection is called ‘Pollute me’, so we had this idea of making a dress that looked like a torn, weathered newspaper lying in the sand. The first couple of drafts just didn’t tell the story or any story at all. So we kept on sketching and sewing samples, till it felt right.
In which ways do you hope the brand will grow?
Organically. It is important for us to retain a framework, that makes us want to keep creating. We want to reach a point where we can implement ourselves with fewer limitations. Also, one of the great things about making garments is when people wear them. We want to see people put our creations into their own context. When you wear our garments, you develop our universe.
How do you see the latest collection from Solitude Studios fitting into the conversation surrounding the brand?
‘Pollute me’ is sort of a villain in our universe. It embodies pollution. Of our planet, each other, ourselves, or however you may want to interpret it. If you have the garments in hand and read the, so to speak, ‘fine print’ in our newspaper, you will find tales about pollution and life. It is perhaps a statement of our attempt to find new ways in the industry. It is also a comment on how much this same industry pollutes our world—and not just environmentally.
