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The fashion week in Stockholm in August was a real breakthrough for one of the most written about Swedish designers at the moment; Helena Hörstedt. Her show was covered by fashion media from all over the world, including heavy weights like Style.com, Vogue and V magazine.

Who is the designer behind all this hoo hah then? Helena graduated from Beckmans School of Design in Stockholm in 2004. Already before she began her Helena Hörstedt education she knew she wanted her own business. “It has never been of any interest for me to work with someone else’s vision”, she says. She also explains that she is a bit of a control freak that likes to work on her own.

Helena has become famous for her hand sewn black dresses. She puts a phenomenal amount of time into every dress she makes – all to reach exactly the quality and result that she wants. “Sometimes I have to stop myself from working on a dress or I would never finish them”, she says. “I keep getting ideas, but instead of continuing to work with that one, I have learnt to finish one and use the ideas as a seed of inspiration on the next dress.”

This gives a flow to the dresses and garments in her collection and also gives every collection a very clear identity and style.

To go back to the topic of black - Helena always works in black. “There is only one color that makes things so definite”, she explains. “I like that black is not really a color that you are supposed to like and there is of course the meaning of the dark.” Though her dresses are entirely black doesn’t mean that they don’t shift in different shades. This is done by using different qualities of fabrics, like raw silk or stonewashed silk. Preferred fabrics are silk and wool since they are natural, strong materials.

One thing that Helena feels very strongly about is the whole materialistic view on fashion and shopping. “Most important for me is that I get some kind of channel for my creativity. It is not important for me that lots of people buy the end product”, she says. “It is possible to experience fashion in different ways than buying it.” In a country like Sweden, with no real haute couture tradition, this is a bit of a controversial statement. With more Swedish fashion designers going their own way and thinking more about creativity than sales, this is something that Helena hopes will change in the future though it will take time.

“The most boring thing with the sales focus is that you raise so many limits for your creativity, since you have to limit yourself not to make the finished product too expensive”, she continues. It should probably be explained though that Helena is not criticizing the designers that choose the other path, but it is most definitely not for her.

From Helena's latest collections. Photo by Mikael Schulz/Söderberg agentur

It is hard for designers in general not to think of sales as well. Sweden is a small country and contributions to artists and designers are not plentiful. Since fashion as art doesn’t really have a long tradition to rest on, it is even harder for a fashion designer that wants a year or two just to explore his or hers creativity. Helena herself was lucky and got a contribution from the Arts Foundation (Konstnärsfonden) that took her through an important year.

“I hope that the industry will learn to nurture its talents better”, she says. “The whole industry would gain from the diversity that would come from this.” With this she is pretty much saying that the tiny scholarships that are given out in many cases are pretty rubbish. “20´000 won’t get you anywhere, it is better to give a substantial amount to one designer instead”, she says.

It couldn’t be said better by anyone else and we are sure happy that Helena got her money when she did and we are also pleased that her customers do not care about the nonsense talk in some media that her dresses would be expensive – good work costs money – it’s as simple as that!