July 28, 2022 |
What was once a performance-based namesake label, Arnar Mār Jōnsson is being re-birthed with a new studio and a fresh collection for next summer. But, the cherry on top of this delicious evolution is that the brand has been christened a new name: Ranra.
Founded by its old eponym, Arnar Mār Jōnsson, alongside co-Royal College of the Arts graduate Luke Stevens, the newly-named Ranra continues to engage with an amalgamation of performance-oriented outerwear with streetstyle panache, where nature and the city meet. Describing this progression as “a recalibration or reset” for the brand, the pair are refocusing their energy on a fresh-faced design studio that functions to expand the Ranra ethos beyond the bounds of just clothes. Marking a clear evolution for the London label, for the first time ever Ranra is dipping its toes into uniform and textile design, unique construction systems and even furniture manufacturing.
Beyond the physical garms, Ranra’s new studio enacts a more effective, collaborative working culture. It’s a creative hub housing external talent across industries and catering as a space to exchange knowledge. The co-creative directors explain, “We’re expanding our community through industry partnerships and collaborations with practitioners from other fields: product design, furniture, publishing.”
When it comes to the clothing design process – with the garment’s evolution mid-use in mind – Jōnsson and Stevens never cease in their pragmatic pursuit of innovation. Rather, the design duo exercise a process of poetic refinement between manufacturers, themselves and their wearers, catapulting functional apparel into the modern man’s wardrobe with an approach to fabrication that works to increase adaptability and versatility season after season. With each effortlessly cool silhouette, the twosome are digging deeper into manufacturing methods, material treatments and dye processes – juxtaposed within existing methods – in a bid to comprehend how these approaches inform their fabrication, construction and design decisions for disassembly within the garment itself.
Plus, placing the unarguable significance of environmental preservation on a pedestal, Ranra uses sustainably-sourced materials throughout all of its work. Jōnsson and Stevens write, “It starts with the supply chain and extends into the ways in which a customer uses a particular product, how we prolong its lifespan and what happens when it’s no longer of use.” To illustrate, for SS23 the brand has made a lightweight and durable, triple-layer jacket from a textile dubbed Loomstate – an unprocessed recycled cotton twill with a bio-membrane derived from castor beans – that boasts exceptional water and wind-proofing abilities. “The goal here wasn’t to produce the most protective shell on the market, but to push the use of natural materials within a high performance, sustainable sportswear context and establish a new technical language around this particular archetype,” they explain.
While these ideas aren’t exactly new and have been slow-roasting on the brand’s backburner for a number of years, the partners slowly developed an infrastructure that has at last allowed them to implement the crux of their creative savoir-faire into their oeuvre – think high-tech transitional pieces and a look at the behind-the-scenes of it all: “The things you might not see, but can feel,” they say.
In Ranra’s heart lives a desire to provide a more human touch to the sartorial sphere of practical dress. This is where the artisanal hand-dyed finishes that you’ll see in the tie-dye bombers, cream-coloured crochet bags, motley multi-panel jumpers or zip-adorned windbreakers and incandescent comfy co-ords come into play. Crafted through a process of treating whole garments with an over-dyeing and washing technique, the result is unexpected colour combos and the softening of the handle of heavier Ventile cotton fabrics without affecting their imperative waterproof qualities.
But the point is this: Ranra is altogether about the unseen going ons that transpire behind the curtain – from the supply-chain, to new manufacturing methods or interventions in existing approaches, to sustained research on recyclability and repair. Whatever the project, for Ranra, the aim is always innovation.
Photography courtesy of Ranra.
