December 26, 2024 |
There’s a childlike curiosity threaded through the work of Ellen Hodakova Larsson. Since founding her namesake label Hodakova in 2021, the Swedish talent has viewed fashion through an experimental lens. The clothes that occupy the 32-year-old’s collections fit into the everyday categories that occupy our wardrobes: a skirt here, a dress there, with even tailoring being thrown into the mix. Yet what makes up their construction is nothing short of extraordinary.
a wispy frock (AW24)
from left: a metal ball gown and cellophane two piece (AW23); a leather dress (AW23)
Larsson has quickly established herself as an upcycling maestro, impressing the fash pack with her ability to transform mundane, household items into innovative designs packed with plenty of wow factor. Her catwalks have been populated by everything from calf-length dresses made of a curtain of Frankensteined together old man black belts, click-clack heels adorned with disused steel watch straps and pretty pink handbags she’s morphed into miniskirts. One of her most notable designs, a halterneck constructed entirely from 102 spoons bent in half – Uri Geller, eat your heart out – was worn by Cate Blanchett to the Los Angeles premiere of her film Borderlands in the summer.
This inquisitiveness to turn what would end up being trash into total fashion treasure led Hodakova to the top gong at this year’s LVMH Prize. Previously bestowed on the likes of Grace Wales Bonner, Steven Stokey-Daley and Nensi Dojaka, the award, which is targeted at accelerating the growth of emerging labels, is one of the most prestigious prizes in fashion. Chosen from an impressive shortlist of sparkling designers by a jury of industry bigwigs like Jonathan Anderson, Kim Jones and Phoebe Philo, Larsson was awarded £330,000 and a year of mentorship from the luxury conglomerate.
from left: a top constructed of upcycled bras (SS24); a dress made from an old briefcase (AW24)
“It’s important to keep this going,” said Larsson following her win, stating that she will invest the prize money into logistics and the infrastructure of her label. “I aim to work on a fashion house that is sustainable on every single level. We all know we can’t [continue to] work this way, to just produce and produce and produce. We need to have another way and I believe that this is one way to show that this system is actually working and we can actually reuse stuff. It’s crucial to use what knowledge we have on a bigger scale to show the possibility of this business model and the possibility of accepting this way of working.”
Larsson operates across all aspects of her business. When we chat leading up to the prize announcement, she’s working on developing her e-commerce channel despite suffering a bout of crystal sickness (a type of vertigo), which has left her head spinning for the last week. She’s in the midst of concocting what will end up being her SS25 collection in her studio in Stockholm. “When I was younger, there was definitely more of a creative scene here, which has developed more in the culture direction in ways more than fashion,” she says. Having shown in Paris for a few seasons now, she finds the isolation of being based in her native country rewarding. “It works very well for me being here. There’s nothing much going on, it’s more of a calm environment that makes you focus on your work and your private life. There’s a community here where we’re always helping one another. That’s a strong part of it being quite small.”
One of Hodakova’s most recognisable designs is a dress constructed entirely of bent spoons
Home comforts worm their way into Larsson’s design handwriting, too. As part of her SS25 outing – which included double-sleeved argyle knits and dresses made of leather boots that jutted outwards at the hips – were a series of landscape paintings of idyllic countryside transformed into frocks (their frames still attached at the hem). They made Larsson think of her adolescence. “I was brought up [riding] on horses. It sounds very fancy when I say it, but it was definitely not,” she says. Growing up in Strängnäs, a small town in southern Sweden, on a farm that looked after trusty steeds, she remembers her mother’s obsession with the British countryside. She often littered their home with checkered blankets and upholstered sofas. Her dad, who was in the military, would teach her the importance of taking care of her leather shoes and how to iron from a young age.
Alongside her brother, Larsson was free to “explore nature through a child’s eyes”, often spending her days foraging, climbing pine trees and making juices from the fruit that grew on the land. “It pushed me to be very inspired about using materials from a young age,” she says, adding: “I romanticise my childhood a lot, I kind of long for it.”
from left: a briefcase dress (AW24); a quilted leather sofa dress (AW24)
As a result of growing up with little money, Larsson values whatever fabrics or objects she has to hand – this resourcefulness has shaped her creative process entirely. Take her AW24 collection, for instance. It saw Larsson propose her own iteration of a business suit which featured a shirt and tie (the latter created from a flesh-coloured pair of stockings) paired under a pencil dress created using a briefcase. “I got that from my dad,” she explains. He’d offered her the battered bag when he was clearing out some rooms before moving house. She ripped up the seams then stitched the bag together again in the silhouette of a dress. “Those sorts of transformations are very direct,” she says. Elsewhere, she imagined a ball gown from a swarm of ink-black rosette ribbons and patchworked together a series of flat caps to create an off-the-shoulder blouse, nodding to her horse girl past (Larsson was a competitive equestrian through her childhood).
from left: a top constructed from trouser fastenings (SS24); a sack twin-set (SS25)
There’s an artistic flair to many of Hodakova’s designs which can be linked back to Larsson’s schooling. She originally trained to be a sculptor before focusing her attention on fashion. The first piece she remembers creating at The Swedish School of Textiles was a bag made from an old bra. “That was fun,” she says, “I remember after making it just thinking, ‘How can I build on this?’ which led to various different explorations.” Her graduate collection, shown during Copenhagen Fashion Week for AW20, saw the designer deconstruct second-hand finds to paint equestrian garb in a new, innovative light, leading her to collaborate with the H&M-owned in-house brand Weekday early on to breath new-life into deadstock garments, creating tops from excess gloves and so on.
from left: a double-sleeved argyle knit and conjoined boots (SS25); a landscape painting turned into a coat (SS25)
“It’s only been three years since I started the brand, but it feels like I’ve been doing it forever. Every season feels like an entire year so it feels more like six years,” says Larsson, with a laugh. With the cash injection from the LVMH Prize, she’s eager to put her foot on the accelerator and take the brand to the next step, all while ensuring the inquisitiveness to transform what’s already with us stays at the heart of her label. “I’m always curious about the possibilities that lie ahead,” she says. For Hodakova, the future looks bright.
Photography courtesy of Hodakova. Taken from 10+ Issue 7 – DECADENCE, MORE, PLEASURE – out NOW. Order your copy here.
a series of upcycled dresses (SS24)
