talent craziness – “artcouture”

On Tuesday was it time for my friend, Iris and me to have our monthly date – and we met up in Helsingborg for lunch and a bit of culture at Helsingborg’s Culture Centre, Dunkers. They have always some exciting exhibition going on.

This time was the exhibitions of very successful fashion designer, Bea Szenfeld – “ArtCouture” and photographer Helene Schmitz – “Boarderlands” – both Swedish, that we want to pay attention to. This post is all about Bea.

Bea Szenfeld became an international name after she designed the 2 piece dress that Björk wore at the Polar Prize award in 2010. The suit jacket is totally made out of three-dimensional paper sequins. This shimmering pinkmetallic garment is a part of a magnificent haute peppier collection.

Today Bea has Lady Gaga as her customer and she is very popular with Swedish artist. The most spoke about outfit is the body stocking that our home popular singer Lena Philipsson wore on stage during her ” My Dream Show” tour – some performances it was so small for Lena and they had to stitch it on her by hand.

Bea was born in Poland in 1972 – she moved with her parents to Gothenburg in 1983. In 2002 she graduated from Beckmans College of Design . Her final project won H & M ‘s design scholarship.

2003 Bea won a competition and reality television shows Fashion House , which was about five Swedes during two months in Rome competing against other young European designers for a three-month internship at the fashion house Stella McCartney . The practice was extended to eight months.

At Stockholm Fashion Week Spring 2014 she showed an imaginative “collection” with animal theme in the paper. These creations were also used by the American star artist Lady Gaga with dancers in the music video for the song “GUY” at the same time.

I have never looked very closely on her work before, so visiting the exhibitionist was an eye opener for me. She have made a dress from pasta. The work that has gone into her piece is just amazing – using paper in different shapes for her creations, and empty toilet rolls becomes the most stunning pieces.

Her most famous fashion collection is “Sur la plage” – On the beach.

In cooperation with the Italian company Barilla, she has designed a dress made of pasta and she has made a collection entirely made of plastic material PVC in 2009.

My favorite is the little white number totally made out of paper dollies. You can check out her amazing creations on her webiste – szenfeld.com

Bea’s creation is a combine mixture of art and fashion – her paper creations are not wearable as such and on the beach forget about it.

 “I started working with paper because I was tired of the fashion world. There is a great brand safety and everything to be expensive and exclusive. I think the design is everything, and then you can work in any material. The paper attracted me with its structure and that it is not normally something you appreciate. For me it gives the material an opportunity to work three-dimension, architecturally. ” (Bea)

In my eyes are Bea a very interesting, exciting and talent designer – but she has a good portion of magical craziness and humor.

Dunkers also had a Bea workshop where anyone could be creative in paper, there was some good attempt.

It was very tricky to make Bea’s creations justice, because they were protected by a very fine black mesh – so visitors could touch the garments. The alarm was very sensitive too – twice did I set off the alarm – I pointed at the pieces.

Bea’s personl fashion style is vintage and she is total vegan.

“I base most of my fashion taste on what doesn’t itch.”
Gilda Radner

Bea’s image provided by and thanks to; aftonbladet.se