Ann-Sofie Back graduated from Central Saint Martins in 1998; her work was amongst that shown as a tribute to the late Louise Wilson at last week’s British Fashion Awards, her MA tutor during the late 90’s.
In the 16 years since she has produced collections under her own name mainline and the 2005 founded label BACK, plus as creative director at Cheap Monday, a position she has held since 2009. Somewhere along the way a Topshop collaboration also carried the Back moniker…
In November she became the first Swedish fashion designer to be awarded the Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Prize (Google it), and for the next month a self-curated exhibition of her archive can be found at the Röhsska museum in Gothenburg.
“How did it feel? It was a lot of fun doing the exhibition when I finally realised I didn’t want to make an exhibition at all,” she tells Clash, “I wanted to create a shop!”
“I find exhibitions problematic, static and often boring and I couldn’t work out how to do an archive exhibition in the space provided or within the budget,” she continues. “I also felt that working on the exhibition would have to be fun as there is so much pressure on BACK as a company now, that it couldn’t just be another thing on the to do list.”
Playing on the idea that people “aren’t really interested in the art, they are just there for the gift shop,” Back instead created ‘Allt ska bort!’ (Everything Must Go!). A pound shop style space selling dildos, condoms and toilet roll – alongside mannequins dressed in the designer’s wares – the shop is a physical expression of the off beat aesthetic for which her clothes are recognised.
“The merchandise is linked to inspirations from previous collections,” Ann-Sofie confirms, “for example the SS11 porn themed Atelje line has the Fuck BACK condoms and the Come BACK dildo.”
And peoples reactions? “(They) think it’s fun. It’s very Instagram friendly so lots of younger people seem to appreciate it,” she recognises. The best selling item so far is the BACK fire lighter.
Pound shops don’t strictly exist in Sweden – something about the national vision of good quality versus the tasteless nature of Poundland et al, perhaps – but, presumably because of this, Back finds them fascinating, and hence her version of one she calls her dream shop.
“When BACK opens its first store it will have to be designed with sales and the customer in focus and would probably not look like this,” she clarifies, hinting that such an opportunity might not be far off; BACK celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2015.
Elsewhere the exhibition elevates the branding that has become integral to the BACK label. What was initially proposed as a cheeky exaggeration of classic Klein, Hilfiger and co logomania, today is spread throughout Back’s collections, and across the goods on offer here.
Similarly, another leftfield project earlier this year – Back’s first wine – saw the bottle dressed up in a BACK logo, simultaneously supporting Ann-Sofie’s inside joke that fashion – and culture – should be if not irreverent, certainly playful.
“I think it’s fun with all the cheesy celebrities having their own wine or even box,” she offers. “We initially wanted to call it BACK fylla and make a box, which means hungover, but we weren’t allowed and if you make boxes you can’t sell it to restaurants.”
“Embarrassment and shame,” she concludes, “is integral in my feelings about fashion and if you have that kind of baggage you can’t take fashion too seriously, or yourself.”
Words: Zoe Whitfield
Until 11th January.
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