Rediscovering Swedish Knitwear Genius Sandra Backlund in Stockholm
Rediscovering Swedish Knitwear Genius Sandra Backlund in Stockholm
Sandra Backlund x Urbanears
Photo: Courtesy of UrbanearsSandra Backlund x Urbanears
Photo: Courtesy of UrbanearsSandra Backlund x Urbanears
Photo: Courtesy of UrbanearsSandra Backlund x Urbanears
Photo: Courtesy of UrbanearsSandra Backlund x Urbanears
Photo: Courtesy of UrbanearsSandra Backlund x Urbanears
Photo: Courtesy of UrbanearsSandra Backlund x Urbanears
Photo: Courtesy of UrbanearsEvery fan of fashion has their own list of magic names; on mine is that of Sandra Backlund, an extraordinary Swedish knitwear designer and artist who as a young girl was taught by her grandmother the basics of the craft that would become her signature. “I don’t feel like I chose knitwear, it just happened,” Backlund tells me via email. Her “heavy wool collage knitting” was welcomed with acclaim when she was still in enrolled at Beckmans College of Design.
Three years after graduating, Backlund won the grand prize at the 2007 Hyères festival at which she remembers Christian Lacroix, that year’s jury president, telling her that people were crying at her fashion show because they found her work so emotional. While most reviews were raves, the designer does recall “some angry comments from people in the business that thought I dressed women like cabbage.” Undeterred, she kept on creating three-dimensional knits that seemed destined for future heroines—and museum exhibitions. Then, after her Fall 2013 collection, Backlund seemed to mysteriously disappear.
So what ever happened to Sandra Backlund? There’s no intrigue to the answer: “I never stepped away completely,” the designer explains, “but since I was doing everything myself by hand and because what I do is so time-consuming, it came to a point where I had to put my collection on hold to be able to do other things I wanted in life. In 2012, I gave birth to my first son, and in 2015, I had my second. During this time, a lot changed, as it does when you become a parent, and I decided to try some other things that I always had to turn down before because I didn’t have the time.”
I joyfully rediscovered Backlund this Fashion Week Stockholm in conjunction with one of the projects she said yes to, with Stockholm-based Urbanears. The company was looking for an artful way to pay tribute to its distinctive fabric-wrapped cords as it released the Plattan 2 Bluetooth headphones, which are wire-free. “I thought it was a brave idea, coming from a commercial company,” Backlund says. “I did some tests using the cords and then I was hooked, I just had to find out what I could do with them. I have to admit that the cords were quite difficult to work with, but the technical results of both the knit and the crochet swatches I did were so nice that it had to be worth it.” Indeed, and not only for Urbanears. Will we see more of Backlund’s artistry anytime soon? “I hope so,” the designer says. “I’m knitting, but I’m not sure yet on what.” Now that’s music for the ears.
