Eva Kittelsen is a woman from Norway I´ve known for many years. She moved to Stockholm at a very young age to study ballet. Now she´s in a whole different element – fabric, needles and threads – studying fashion & textile design. I sent her a few questions that I wanted to ask here about her life and more. To read what she answered just scroll down this post!
The photography I feature today has been borrowed of Eva Kittelsen, so she´s owning the rights. Thank you for being so kind, and I hope you are able to find success in your field. I for one do get impressed when studying gorgeous designs, for me sewing a button to a jacket is considered a great accomplishment.
1. First I´d like to know who you are?
I’m not a person who finds it easy to describe who I am in few words, that’s for sure…
I am a bit shy, but very talkative and crazy.
I’m very hardworking and can work myself ill, but I can enjoy being lazy every once in a while.
I love high heels and feminine dresses, but will go to university in sweatpants and no make up if I feel like it.
I love ultra healthy food and exercise as much as I love cuddling up in a blanket with hot chocolate and ice cream while watching anything from a poorly made romantic comedy to intense psychological drama.
I’m also a loved wife to a Uruguayan man (living in Spain at the time we met), soon to be mother, mormon and ex-dancer.
2. What do you do?
Right now I am in my third and final year of a bachelor called “Fashion and Textile Design with Enterprise” at the University of Portsmouth in England. I’ve always loved designing and making clothes, and most other crafts you can imagine. I started buying and wishing for fashion design and pattern cutting books around the age of 12 and got a mannequin before I had turned 15.
When I was about to start college I was at a cross road and didn’t know if I should pursue my dream to become a ballet dancer, or a fashion designer. I decided on dancing for the time being as that’s something that HAS to be done while you are still young, and after arduous auditions I was accepted into the Royal Swedish Ballet School in Stockholm and therefore moved away from home (close to Oslo, Norway) at the age of 16. Unfortunately I developed some chronic back problems, and decided to not pursue a career after I finished my professional degree. I have many other interests I wanted to explore further.
3. Where do you live? What´s the best part of that place?
I live in Portsmouth, an island-city at the far south of England, right across the Isle of Wight. The best part of this city is that it’s close to the ocean, so you don’t feel trapped or locked in. It also has a lot of history (It’s been the British Royal Navy’s main port and main dockyard, so there are quite a few interesting monuments, forts and museums here.) Also the street we live in(known by the local art scene as “Albert Road Republic”) is quite cool, with loads of vintage and second hand shops, and take-aways from nearly every country in the world!
You can find pretty much everything you wouldn’t normally look for. I would say that the worst about the city is that there are no good places to buy fabrics here, so I usually end up sourcing my materials in London (Soho or Goldhawk Road, about 2 hours by train from Portsmouth).
4. Who inspires you?
My husband. He has a very creative side and helps me push towards my goals. He probably believes more in me than I do, and will encourages me to think with great optimism about my future as a Fashion and Textile designer. He’s also always helpful and willing to look at my work and give me constructive feedback and help me to never settle unless it’s actually the best I can do. We’ve only been married for 2 years, but I can already say that I wouldn’t be where I am now if it wasn’t for him.
If I were to mention a Fashion Designer that inspires me it would probably be Vivienne Westwood. I think she’s a great designer and I absolutely love how she works with volume, and draping and seemingly “random” or messy shapes, that shouldn’t really look good, but she still pulls it off. I also like that she can be completely crazy and controversial. She does what she wants the way she wants it. I don’t like everything she’s made, or agree with absolutely everything she stands for or express through her fashion, but I think that the way that she does it is fantastic, and I want to have the same confidence in my ideas and visions.
5. Do you have a picture of your favorite dress? That you´ve designed.
That would probably be the dress I made for a project where we collaborated with the designer Charlotte Taylor this fall. I’m most happy with my choice of colour. Initially I was planning on dying it brown, but changed my mind and went for a yellow that I had to dye myself. I love that it’s so bright! I also think it’s the dress I’ve made that is tailored the best, and the pattern for it was a real nut to crack. It was great fun to see it all made up 🙂
My second favourite is my wedding dress! When I made that I had only been self-taught, so there are many things I would have done differently now, but I still love the design and the look of it. I definitely feel that it represented me well and I felt great wearing it!
Mixing techniques would be my favourite 😛 The yellow dress is a good example of that since it has both a very structured clean top based on flat pattern cutting with some draping on the stand, in combination with the skirt which is a quite random shape that has been draped and altered and experimented with until I thought it looked good. (but I guess that’s more construction than sewing really…)
6. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
I’ll have at least two children, maybe even three, live either in Spain or Norway, or in a random place with a name I can’t even pronounce right! Regardless of where in the world I live, I expect to be quite established as a Norwegian Fashion designer. I want my main market to be in Norway. I feel that there is a lot of design talent there, but many choose to leave and use their talents on other markets.
The first Oslo Fashion Week was only in 2004, so Norway as a “Fashion Country” is actually quite a new thing, and I’m excited to see how it will develop. I love Norway, and want to be a part of expanding the fashion industry there. I might design for or sell in other countries as well, but my first priority will always be my beautiful home country, Norway.
To read more & see more of her, go here.
kjandersen 