Peter Jensen's Muses

The famous redhead Peter Jensen finally got his well deserved sponsorship and exhibition at the Danish Design Museum, which has housed legendary exhibitions of iconic Danish designers such as Balmain's  Erik Mortensen. Apart from being a busy man with his own company, he is also the menswear tutor on the MA Course at Central Saint Martins, a place he himself studied after a BA from Denmarks Design School.  After two successful seasons in Paris he decided to move from menswear to womenswear and has since shown during London Fashion Week to much acclaim. 

Dazed Digital: Tell us about your exhibition, how did it come about? 
Peter Jensen: Well, it started of with us wanted to make a book about our 10 years in this world of fashion. I think we then thought it would be a nice thing, for us to look back in the archive, which we have kept since the very being, well from then on it sort went quite fast getting people on board to work on it. Eva Kruse from Danish Fashion Council made the first contact with Design Museum Denmark and after that it sort of just happened.

DD: Do you always start a collection thinking about a specific woman?
Peter Jensen: Yes, I think we do but it can also happen later on, but it is always a women dead or alive. And why a woman and not a man, i think it has to do with the fact that I, myself, is a man and find the world of women very interesting and mystified. women can be the most evil people but at the same time very nice and at the same time nagging you to death. The women that we work with always seems to have a more unusual story and most probably not the typical fashion muse.

DD: You seem to be very connected to Denmark in your design, why did you choose to stay in London?
Peter Jensen: Because I couldn't do what I do if I lived in Denmark, it would not be possible for me. I also have a teaching job at st.martins at the MA course and have had that for the last nine years, oh, and then I'm married to an English boy how don't speak Danish or want to move there. Very simple.

DD: You say that ''behind every single collection, there are many stories''. Could you tell me about one of those stories?  
Peter Jensen: I can talk about the S/S03 collection which was based on Olga Korbut, the Russian gymnast. Her story was and is fascinating, her performers at the 1972 summer Olympics is just fantastic. So that was the starting point, Olga Korbut, we wanted to work with primary colours, sporty fabrics and make the collection young and sweet, if that is a right word for it.

The opening of the show,which was held at the danish embassy at their car park, the perfect place for this collection as that place is grey concrete, with lamps designed by Arne Jacobsen, was five girls coming out in leotards white, black and bright yellow.Anyway to go back to Olga, we started of by watching all her performers from the Olympics, read books about her and saw these documentaries about her. The print was designed by Abake. We did a project with Anna Cockburn about leotards for self service after this collection, it was great seven pages photographed by David Sims.

'Muses' is at the Danish Design Museum from August 5 to October 30, 2011