Man oh man

This one must be the best one I've ever done and it's not even ready yet. I can't wait to show it to you guys...I'll upload some of the sketches right after New Years. It's so intense everything right now, and yeah on top of that the mix tape is just enhancing the whole situation. I feel so much and as if that's not enough I steal the feelings of others too. It's all channelized into shapes, texts, lyrics, concepts, drawings, clothes and a whole lot of other ideas. This flow is groovy, can't stop it, can't help myself, everything has turned clear.

Yeah baby yeah!

The creativity coming out of this shit is wicked and divine, so fuck you all out there for fucking with me.

Vice Magazine / Ravishing Mad Christmas Gift

Merry Christmas friends!!! Vice Magazine Denmark is giving away a pair of Ravishing Mad High Rise Jeans and Marv Jeans today. Log on to Facebook and write a comment to this photo on their wall and maybe you'll get lucky this very white Christmas Eve!
We still have some left in the webshop in case you fall in love with them...

Lots of Christmas love from Vice and Ravmad!

Blackbook

Thank you Rac boutique in Toronto for being so cool! You are promoting Ravishing Mad as hell and it seems lately we get cred everywhere and anywhere thanks to you!!! :-) I just found out that you mentioned us as one of your "up and coming designers" in the bit about your shop in the new Blackbook with Kristen Dunst!
 











Image from Blackbook

Ravishing Mad at (capsule)

We have booked to show at (capsule) during next Women's Paris Fashion Week March 5-7 2011, at 25 Rue Toudic, 75010

Rav Mad Blog

I needed a somewhere to collect all the wickedness I find on the interweb, so I started one more blog were I'll post links and clips to the best music, art, films, fashion and so on. Call it Rav Mad.

Your opinion on jeans sizing?

Dear Friends,
I need your help! The last couple of months things have fiiiiinally changed and normal sized people are giving me some love! So let's do this, let's together decide on the sizing.

Ravishing Mad is still a small brand and it's oh so expensive to produce a stock of jeans in all our different colours and styles. The first couple of seasons most stores that bought from us were only interested in women's sizes 26",27",28",29" and they even started asking for smaller sizes. I did produce size 30" anyway but rarely sold any of those until just recently (and now I have only 1 pair of 30" left in the webshop). This phenomena seemed incredibly odd to me, but then again I couldn't afford to keep a stock of something that no one showed any interest in.

So, will you please be a sweetheart and give me some suggestions on sizes for High Rise? Legs are always long to make sure they fit as many as possible, it's easier to shorten than lengthen, right? Waist size last season was 25",26",27",28",29",30" and I'm adding 31" and 32" for sure, but the question is: is there any interest out there for more sizes, and in that case which???

Please fill the comment field below with all your thoughts (at the bottom of this post), and you'll MAKE MY DAY!

As lonely as I

I grabbed your arm, and you let me steer
I bet that you knew, where it would lead
pulling and tearing, I knew what I wanted
why do you tease me, tease me to pieces?

 

You can’t read my mind, mysterious skin
well truth is darling, I got it all wrong
cause I want what you have, and I have what you need
but the need that you have, is not to be needed

 

I will tear you up, and scream out loud

face all fears, till the air runs out
I wanna hit real hard, and shake you well
have you ever felt lonely, as lonely as I?

 

I am sorry for fooling, those who were sorry
for upward and forward, for turning to sorrow
strong and fulfilling, I marched to your beat
so sorry for wanting, what no one expects

 

Disregarding the fact, that I am still here
reject or unwind, oh silence shreds
miming or whispering, at the top of my lungs
have you ever been lonely, as lonely as I?

Ravishing Mad Webshop

Yeah baby yeah, the webshop is finally up! My husband Truls has programmed it to perfection and we'll keep filling the stock with new cool styles along the way. We want happy customers so of course we offer free shipping worldwide and all transactions are made through the secure PayEx service.

Lady Gaga's Ravishing Mad dress in Malmö Sweden

Lady Gaga is coming to town this weekend so the local newspaper Tidningen City here in Malmö decided to dedicate a little project to her. They asked me and two other local designers to spend a couple of hours each making her a crazy dress from secret material. We were separately given different materials to work with the day before yesterday and I got turquoise and gold coloured gift wrapping paper, the designer at Din Favoritpolack got a couple of cabbage heads and Robert Och Blad coffee cups, coffee filters and cake accessories.

Gaga's most outrageous costumes always seam to have a very clear theme no matter what it is and I found some images from her visit to Japan where she dressed as a crazy geisha. I thought to myself that since she's coming to Sweden I'd better make her something that reminds one of that. And what about the theme...well, I didn't find any outfits of her dressed as neither a flag nor a wrapped gift and I made a quick decision on what to do.

The dress, it had to be short. Gaga likes short, very short. I wrapped her in blue paper and made a huge shiny rousette in the front, cut the gold paper into a ribbon and tied her just as you always do ie like a cross all around the package. Never mind her head and crotch, Gaga doesn't give a fuck about conventions. And then loads of little cute parcels all over the skirt. The square foundation around the hips I made from an old shoe box I found in my wardrobe. I spent 4 hours with my glue gun and vóila! I named it GAGA GIVEAWAY.

Ida Annie Kyllerman, model and makeup artist, came over the following day and together we came up with a wicked makeup and hair style. I thought of the dress as a contrast between a young and cute birthday girl verses a fearless stage show artist. I curled her hair into lots of cork screws, Ida did an amazing job with the makeup. She enlarged her eyes with huge eylashes under the eyes and made graphic shapes of pink around the eyes and cheeks. Her bleached eyebrows fit perfectly into that crazy look.

Photographer Mårten Svemark took some vicious shots of Ida in my elevator and journalist Tara Moshizi wrote the article. They told us the editorial staff had turned Gaga crazy from the project and didn't allow any other music at the office that day. And when all the other City editions in the rest of the region of Southern Sweden heard of it all they decided to run it in all the editions today.

The dresses are displayed this weekend in the huge windows at street level of Tidningen City Malmö/Lund at Stortorget in Malmö.

Ravishing Mad S/S-11 Collection

The SS11 collection from Ravishing Mad sees the brain child of Swedish designer Anna Österlund take determined steps towards a more sinister expression, embracing elements of d.i.y. punk and urban dystopia in combination with the tongue-in-cheek avantgarde flair of previous collections. It is a "fuck you very much and goodbye" to good manners and to any habits of putting on the happy face.




Inspirations draw from the raw and passionate anger of "The Decline of Western Civilization" to the pounding melancholy of The Cure's "Pornography" over the slacked-off aesthetics of grunge rock and the mad beat genius of Allen Ginsberg. The collection offers 10 denim styles in colours like bright red, black, airbrushed grey and print/wash combination blue. Well-known for the draped big pocket jeans with extremely high waist Ravishing Mad continue to incorporate the draped cuts. Key garments include oversize plaid shirts with assymetric "drunk buttoning", unisex ass-door jumpsuits and mesh hoodies with huge sagging pockets. Prices are in the upper mid segment and the collection will be out in stores in February 2011.

Ravishing Mad is a denim based anti-fashion brand that works closely with underground musicians, artists, photographers and film makers alike in devotion to experimental creation for the benefit of every party involved.
People involved with these, often hilariously entertaining, and indeed ravishingly mad design projects are frequently switching places and either modeling, contributing with music and/or in charge of the camera documenting the process.
Although adhering to Swedish design traditions of high quality, clean lines and stressing functionality, designs are deliberately pushed further, incorporating strong accent colours and straying from the strictness of traditional cuts. The collections offer both women‘s, men’s and unisex styles, in ready-to-wear as well as more extreme versions.




The label was founded in Malmö, Sweden by designer Anna Österlund after graduating from the Swedish School of Textiles in Borås and the first collection was presented in 2008. She now runs Ravishing Mad with her husband Truls Bråhammar.

Explaining the philosophy behind Ravishing Mad, Anna Österlund states:

“... I don’t like to divide my life into sections, I live it blurred. Work and fun can happen at any time, so I really don’t think there is any need to label it. I go play with my friends, or work, we might sometimes call it work and sometimes not. It evolves into music for some of us, or photos and videos, and some in clothes, or we just mix it all. I love these collaborations and look for them everywhere! I also do two major collections a year under the label Ravishing Mad (and denim is my thing). I show them at the fashion weeks of Paris, New York, Copenhagen and Berlin, but prefer the guerilla way, the anti-fashion way, the fun way.”

Danish designer and multi-artist Henrik Vibskov was one of the first to discover the Ravishing Mad denims and has been stocking them in his stores in Copenhagen and Olso since the very first collection.
Since then Ravishing Mad has also been available at Urban Outfitters online, Delta in Tokyo, Rac boutique in Toronto, TG-170 in NYC, PotiPoti in Berlin, Bespoke Boutique in Norwich and many more.

Recent online articles about this collection:
Italian Frizzifrizzi
American This Heart's On Fire
Canadian KaKofonie Of si(gh)lenS
KaKofonie Of si(gh)lenS (again)
Egyptian Men's Fashion By Francesco

Outrageous sketching

Who else do I know that would react like that if I threw a coffee soaked cloth in his lap? -Just smear it in, baby! He glanced at it for a sec and then instinctivly rubbed his tight white jeans into a stained and brilliant nasty old shade. I did it too, and the warm fluid soon stuck to the legs like an itching old woollen bathing suit. I force myself to imagine that at least...the first thought that came to my mind was something else. The smell was pretty damn good, though.

The secret chamber in my basement is starting to become a favourite place. (Remember, that's where I cut my friends hair late one night last summer.) We collected some stylish old rags from the -90'ies, brewed a bucket of coffee and went down there with our 3 mpx pocket cameras and had a swell time. Hands on sketching at it's best. We tried the rags on in all ways possible: upside down, inside out, leaping, jumping and dancing. It was caught in a thousand frames as proof of true narcissist artistic fanaticism.

After, we printed ourselves, cut and glued, painted, drew and sprayed it into a collection. The Autumn/Winter-11 collection was emerging.

RebekkaMaria wearing Ravishing Mad

The groovy Danish junglepop/eskimopop artist RebekkaMaria just rocked the cult tv show Oslobåden in our Ravishing Mad leather gloves with fringes, check it out 14 min. into the episode!

Jet Olivia and Leslie Van Stelten

Jet Olivia is a proper cool New York stylist that I've had my eyes on for a while now. She gives a true rock 'n' roll soul to anything she gets her hands on and you could imagine my delight when I found out that she used some of my Ravishing Mad clothes in one of her recent photo shoots. Check these photos of the unisex cardigan that I once named The Struggling Musician.
Photo by wicked photographer Leslie Van Stelten, who none the less is a true artist with a fearless mind.

Ps. I happen to have one of those cardigans left...

Ravishing Mad Autumn/Winter 2010 Collection

The Autumn/Winter 2010 Collection from Ravishing Mad is influenced by the 1960’s mod teens and the expression “clean livin under difficult circumstances” (Peter Meaden, The Who’s manager). It’s an illusion or a sense of forward motion while having roots in the past, a simpler time. The collection is an exploration of clean cuts and lines and attention to details. A sharply tailored shirt with a yoke to thread the suspenders through, is combined with slim fitted jeans, a leopard bomber jacket, or a unisex bolero with thumb holes. It all embraces an androgynous look that is an obsession with the past, circumscribed to futurist aesthetics. Ravishing Mad has since the beginning been focusing on well fitted denim like the High Rise jean. It has a wave shaped waistband that emphasizes the body's curves and gives an illusion of lengthening the legs, which is further kept by the long back pockets.

To see the AW-10 collection lookbook, please go to: www.ravishingmad.se and click on collections.
AW-10 photos by André de Loisted


For more info:
Sales contact: Anna Österlund anna@ravishingmad.se tel +46706064626
Press contact: Truls Bråhammar truls@ravishingmad.se tel +46702655371

The jeans, thumb hole cardigan and big pocket trousers are available at Plezuro.

Ravishing Mad jeans at Henrik Vibskov boutique

I guess you could say Henrik Vibskov was the first to discover the Ravishing Mad jeans. Back in 2008 during my first season I one day got into my bright red high rise jeans and walked into his store in Copenhagen. I asked if he wanted to stock them and within seconds I got a pen in my hand and was asked to write down their order. Since then they've had them in black, grey, red and blue both in the Copenhagen store and Oslo store. I feel proud to be part of his fantastic concept, and I tell you: If you ever come to any of those cities, do not miss stopping by. His world is a pretty damn cool place. Last week I sent the Oslo store another batch of the blue High Rise Jeans and Marv Drop Crotch Jeans. Hope you like them!

Ass-door jumpsuit is walking the streets of London

And yes, it did happen: I forgot to close the ass-door after visiting a restroom.

























AAhhh, could one ever get enough of her hair?

COCOONS - new Ravishing Mad video

And here it is...finally. The short film about cutting a friend's hair late at night in basement.
Music by INvbaei (tune called Lmvuz2z, free download at illphabetik)
Photo by André de Loisted
Production, edit and text by Anna Österlund, Ravishing Mad
Read more about the film here

Ravishing Mad in London

I'm in London until Thursday this week to show the ss-11 collection to some stores. Don't hesitate give me a call or text if you want me to come by! +46706064626

xo A

Anna-(K/Carin) Jonsson

It’s time for me to continue telling you about my playmates. I started this spring and told you about Truls, Mårten, André, Kat and Hanna, and now I want you to know all about Anna-(K/Carin). It’s a bit confusing, her name that is. I once asked her about what she wanted me to call her and she had on clear answer. She sometimes uses the double name and sometimes not, and if you’d ask her or her parents about the spelling, they disagree. So let’s call her A-K/C cause it looks cool.
A-K/C is an incredibly good friend of mine and we can sit closely for hours, telling each other about very cool/strange things we saw or heard of that no one else understands. We share an obsession for steam punk, military uniforms and of course old broken things, we are soulmates.





I had been wanting to cut her hair for two years, and she had nightmares about accidentally falling asleep in my sofa and waking up with no hair. But this summer she finally was ready and asked me to do something cool. I photographed her (above) just to remember that day. There was no time to waste, but no time to find, she was fully booked and about to leave town just two days later. I felt I had to move quickly in order to not loose magic of the moment. However, neither of us had any other plans than sleeping the following night, so we came to the conclusion that a little get-together was a way better thing to do.
She came over to my place at a very late hour and I specified my plans. -Let’s film the whole thing and do it in the secret chamber I just found in the basement! Now, it might sound like I tricked her into this, but you should know that her mind works in mysterious ways too. She had brought some very blunt old fashioned razor knifes for our session, and immediately suggested we started out by trapping ourselves in fabric cocoons in the dirty old basement chamber.

In my studio we found some black elastic fabric that we sewed together into two cocoons. We lined up her razor knifes and some of my tailor scissors on the dusty floor and A-K/C placed a vicious old wind meter on top of an old radiator. The room was a perfectly claustrofobic old bomb shelter closed with a heavy iron door that had a proper lever that you had to turn to open. The chamber was never cleaned and was filled with forgotten things. It had a beautiful ragged old table in the corner, overloaded with brown glass bottles, spider web, cables and rusty tins.

By that time it was in the middle of the night, and André came over with his camera. A-K/C and I got naked in our cocoons and they were closed from the outside. We snaked around on the floor for at least half an hour, trying to get out, feeling like straightjacket prisoners. It was hard to breath with all the dust and dirt that was whisked into the air, and the line between excitement and panic was rather fine.

After some time had passed, I managed to make a hole in my cocoon and ripped it open. Getting out of it was such a relief. I then used the barber razor blade to cut A-K/C out of her imprisonment and started to cut off the long hairlocks covering her frightened face. I tell you, that was a dull piece of equipment! I had to saw to get through her curls, so I switched into the heavy tailors scissors my father once bought me in Rome. It had a beautiful sound and soon the sides of A-K/C’s head were groomed into a grey 6 mm cut. I saved a long lock in the front and one in the back, and in the end it all looked like a wicked dystopian mohawk of a Venezian courtesan.

Ravishing Mad featuring Charlie Campari

Here is the latest of our vids! It's all of the 1100 photos Caleb shot of me and Mårten. The soundtrack is by Charlie Campari aka Mårten, RM wouldn't be the same without him.

Bestsellers

We're in Paris showing at (capsule) and although the first day was slow, we got some orders. Believe it or not, but the unisex ass-door jumpsuit is a success! We already sold some and it works like a magnet to anyone passing by. My fav jean in the whole world, the big pocket one is going really well too. I'm delighted! We have it in many different colours and some guys have asked for a similar style for men. Who could say no to that? It's yours in a few.

Ravishing Mad at Urban Outfitters

This Summer, Urban Outfitters in USA sold these Ravishing Mad jeans in their webshop and it went really well. They sold out pretty quickly!!!

...but if you wanna get a hold of a pair, you can still buy them at International Playground who has a store both in NYC and LA, and if you're in Canada, you can find them at Rac in Toronto.

Edit (later on same day): International Playground just told me they sold out in NYC, only a few pair left in LA. Hurry up folks!