Tell us about yourself and your background. Where did it all begin, the seeds of your creative passion?

This is a tricky question to answer, for me. In my opinion, the urge to create is all about letting your feelings out towards the life that you grew up in. In a way, designing is in my blood, be it in art, architecture and/or fashion, I enjoy sculpting the world around me in a personal way.

You have participated in Paris Men’s fashion Week. How did this affect you as a creative individual and your future career?

To me, my participation in Paris Men’s Fashion week is crucial. Next to the whirlwind of buyers, art directors and press, I feel Paris always enhances my focus on design. Henceforth, it is important to me, to interact and meet my customers. In a way, Paris is a place where one receives feedback on what one has worked towards for six months.

Tell us about your style and the collections. You create all – round key garments that can easily be worn by different personalities. What is type of customer is your audience?

Well, my absolute pleasure is seeing a person with good taste and knowledge wearing my clothes and feeling comfortable in them. One could say, the garments become part of him and envelop him accordingly.

What is the philosophy / concept upon which your collections are based? How is your work themed between collections? Can you talk us through a few themes / concepts?

The actual first concept is very important, when I begin designing my collections. Naturally, this concept is, or should be different each season. In General, I could say, that the concept evolves around grasping your current inner feelings. For future collections I would like to try and experiment with more experimental concepts in order to evolve and develop my way of thinking and finally producing a collection.

Your collections have an urban and street feel. Is the city part of your field of inspiration? What are your inspirations and influences?

Well, I live in a very small town in Sweden and besides the calmth; I actually draw very little inspiration from there. I imagine myself being somewhere else when designing my clothes. This can be describes as a natural state of mind, since because I can’t get much out from the town I live in, I design my own satisfaction.

The colour schemes in your collections are mostly dark and monochromatic with metallic details, like zippers. What does this mean for you? How did dark Scandinavian music influence your design?

The naturally based colours are important for me. The reason being, of course the obvious: drawing a picture on a blank white paper gets more contrast and seems clearer than drawing a picture on a coloured paper. Henceforth, on a personal level, I have always been some sort of anarchist whilst growing up. In a way, I have always tried to walk against the crowd rather than with it, which has had a clear impact on me. Paradoxically, I would describe myself as a rather dark human being, but with a good soul. In that light, I believe, that the music and the lifestyle that I coincidentally grew up with have their own ways of influencing my designs. Musically, I prefer to envelop me with dark tones, such as drone metal, deep ambient and things like that really puts me in a darker focused mood.

Is Fashion Design: Art or a stylish commodity?

I think clothes themselves can be either fashion or art. I would like my clothes to be more of art than fashion. Nonetheless, for clothes to be wearable and shaped, one has to be realistic and will have to find a way for both of them to meet in the middle.

DESIGNER: Richard Söderberg of Obscur, Helsingborg, Sweden, www.obscur.se. DATE: 2010.

No part of this web site may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of Morfae and the copyright owner.