Byredo Toasts Collection During Paris Fashion Week
Ben Gorham brought together Byredo’s trendy community during Paris Fashion Week, from Off-White designer Virgil Abloh to Anja Rubik, Aymeline Valade and influencers Pernille Teisbaek and Caroline Daur.
The occasion was Gorham’s accessories collection for the label, which dabbles in beauty and leather goods.
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“I’m based in Sweden, so this is the right occasion to bring everyone together and connect with our community,” said the designer.
But despite his cult following, Gorham is committed to going against the fashion current and taking it slow.
For fall, he presented a small, focused accessories collection where he reworked the brand’s popular Blueprint bag using embroideries and hand-painted techniques.
His inspiration was the art of bird-watching, which he was drawn to for its peaceful, community-based nature. He loosely translated this into bags in bright colors and hand-painted inkblots, that reflected the “perfect symmetry of birds.”
A black version featuring neon blue inkblots stood out.
“This style has quickly become our iconic bag, maybe because it has a very strong silhouette — without branding or without hard wear, it still became quickly recognizable. So I felt like I should keep exploring different iterations of this bag and use it as a canvas,” said Gorham. “I’m quite slow, but we’ve also been developing some accessories to add to the collection.”
He pointed to a series of leather pieces, including overalls and a tailored jacket, which featured paintings of birds and a pair of combat boots embellished with black feathers all over.
“Those are insane, how would you not want to grab those?” said Abloh, Gorham’s friend and past collaborator, of the boots in the collection.
Gorham added a series of sculptures to the mix, which resembled bird houses and will be sold through art galleries.
The idea is that the design process can remain completely fluid and encompass any product and category — his ultimate aim being to “bring the worlds of scent and leather together” next season.
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