Stockholm Fashion Week S/S12: Nhu Duong

Having won last year's Young Fashion Industry award at Stockholm Fashion week, the Vietnamese-born designer this season went solo and presented a Spring Summer collection that perfectly showed why she was victorious among the other young Swedish design talent. At Berns Salonger, Nhu Duong showcased her Coding collection, a 15-looks strong parade of colourful garments mixed with more subtle combinations. Wide and loose cargo trousers plus a few oversized white T-shirts set the tone in terms of the silhouette. 

Thin nylon fabrics and latex tank tops added a sporty look without even being athletic. Having focused on neutral shades white and beige tones, Duong all of a sudden dropped a colour bomb and pink parkas, yellow tunics and heels with neon details and a beautiful shimmering metallic dress all impressed. Showing off her full capacity, Duong then sent a cropped linen jacket and a black woven leather jacket down the catwalk.

What had felt like a 90s techno collection was then completely overturned by a handful of perfectly cut evening dresses, convincing any last doubters that Nhu Duong was not only last year's rightful winner but that the Beckmans trained creative is exactly the kind of designer Sweden needs to get rid of its monochrome and minimal aesthetic and to move on, into a bright and light future...

Dazed Digital: What was the collection's starting point? 
Nhu Duong: I started working with rhythm, wanting to create a my own new system of working. For me it's a lot about repetition.  

DD: How did that translate onto the catwalk?
Nhu Duong: Trough coded weaving, prints and my mechanic way of fucking up images...

DD: What were the images of?
Nhu Doung: It's partly same process as last collection where I took touristy images from the Internet and made them bigger and smaller to get a pixelated effect. This time around, I destroyed them by messing with the codes.

DD: How would you describe the collection?
Nhu Duong: It's mechanical but still very romantic...

DD: There was a 90s techno feeling to the wide trousers and the colours... 
Nhu Duong: The trousers actually comes from dad's Kung Fu outfit. My mum used to make out of curtain fabrics, they were kind of stiff!

DD: Any pieces that you think sums up the collection?
Nhu Duong: The prints and the woven garments...