Exploring Scandinavia

Norwegian designer Siri Sveen Haaland designs clothing inspired by rats. In April 2016 her label Black Rat was accepted and sold in the gigantic flagship store Topshop in Oxford Street, London. Since then black design from Norway has become steadily more popular.

Siri launched Black Rat in December 2012. A few days after launch day she got the honorable award as “Newcomer of the Year” on Oslo Fashion Week in February 2013. The Black Rat concept concentrates on making sustainable clothing in mainly wool with a timeless design. The Rat is colorblind and this sets the color range in black/grey/white. According to Siri, the clothing should be as immortal as the rat itself.

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Siri Rat from Norway
For five years, the Norwegian designer has built up a clothing brand that is named after the black rat. But Black Rat has not only taken the name from the rodent, or Rattus rattus, as it is called in Latin. The whole concept is inspired by the animal. The Norwegian streetwear brand has the black rat’s qualities as a red thread. Haalland has even taken the artist name Siri Rat, but the reason is not that she loves rats.

“The idea behind Black Rat is built on the rat itself. It is color-blind, it lives in herds in the underground and it is nearly immortal,” says Siri. Siri started out with only two jackets and has since then built the brand brick by brick; featuring both commercial and non-commercial collections.

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Inspired by reality
One of her collections, “Ansatt/Innsatt” (meaning “employee/inmate”) was built on stories from the book “Skammens Historie” (History of Shame) by Sigmund Aas and Thomas Vestgården. It aimed to tell us how the state of Norway has been institutionalizing different kinds of human groups because of their mental health, religion or orientation. This collection featured the power of the uniform, either you’re an inmate or an employee.

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Combining Black Rat and Norwegian national costumes
Siri got her sewing machine from her mother to confirmation, and that was how she learned to sew. Customers who wanted to change their Norwegian national costumes (bunads) approached Siri and she was more than willing to help them.  Norway has a long tradition in national costumes. Siri comes from a tailor family who has been making these costumes since the 1897. Next to Black Rat, Siri work together with her mum in the family business, Sidserk Systue. There they make all kinds of Norwegian national costumes and educate others in making them correctly.“

A Norwegian bunad shall last for 100 years and that is just as long as Black Rat clothing should last as well,” concludes Siri Sveen Haaland.

Feature image (on top): Black Rat for Top Shop, London. Photo: Annicken Dedekam

Siri Rat from Norway, written by Tor Kjolberg

Norwegian designer Andreas Engesvik designed a unique wall mural collection for the Swedish design brand Photowall. Inspired by old techniques, Andreas created three hand-painted patterns, all in different color schemes. The Manuscript collection is a unique wallpaper designed by the Norwegian designer.

“I have long been fascinated by handprints, and their capacity and ability to create things. Whereas the digital is often related to technology, the hand associates more with the body, the mind and nature. Manuscript is a visual and aesthetic collection that helps to create a personal space by exploring the relationship between these different expressions,” says Andreas Engesvik.

Related: New Designs by Norwegian Interior Designer Andreas Engesvik

Unique Wallpaper Designed by Norwegian Designer
The collaboration between Photowall and Andreas Engesvik unites traditional and digital techniques, where each pattern is first hand-painted by Andreas and then printed digitally in Photowall’s studio in Stockholm. The hand-painted patterns of the wall murals create life and movement, which in turn adds an interesting dynamic to the collection.

Working with new designers
The idea for Photowall was born in 2006 when the founders, brothers Charlie and Niklas Johansson, decided to try out something brand new by creating bespoke digital wall murals. Since the start, Photowall has worked with new designers, well-known brands and illustrators to create inspiring, different wall design and wallpapers. To take the next step towards becoming a more well-established design brand, working with Andreas Engesvik was a natural choice for Photowall.

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“Since the beginning our heart has been in color and form, and we want design to be available to everybody – which is why we’ve always focused on our design collaborations. It’s fantastic that Andreas wanted to create wallpaper patterns with us. Since we print to order and have our own production facilities locally, we can quality assure our products in a different way than if production had been abroad. This means we can offer high quality at every stage to a global market,” says Niklas Johansson, one of Photowall’s founders.

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The Manuscript collection is available exclusively from Photowall as made-to-measure wall murals.

Photowall – wall decor by passionate people
“We believe that the walls of a room affect how we feel. That’s why our mission is to help people fill their walls with great art. We have a carefully selected a diverse range of products. With passion and attention to detail, it is our pleasure to help you transform your home to reflect your personality. Our products are manufactured in Sweden and shipped world-wide,” is a statement on Photowall’s website.

Unique Wallpaper Designed by Norwegian Designer, based on a press release from Photowall

Norwegian furniture designer Hallgeir Homstvedt has exhibited his work in London, Tokyo, Oslo, New York and Milan and has since received a number of design awards. Since 2009 he has run his independent design studio in Oslo, operating out of a 19th-century factory building in the center of the city and focusing on interior and product design.

Hallgeir Homstvedt has always enjoyed making things. The Oslo native, whose family embraced the attitude that “anything can be made or fixed,” was encouraged to experiment by both his mother, who made costumes and clothing for the family, and his father, an engineer and inventor.

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Amazing Norwegian Furniture Designer
Hallgeir Homstvedt holds a BA of Industrial Design and honors from Newcastle University in Australia. After completing his degree in 2006, he has provided furniture, product and industrial design and consultancy services to a wide range of clients, exhibiting widely in London, Tokyo, Oslo, New York and Milan, and creating products for brands such as Lexon, Established & Sons, Muuto and Menu. He has received a number of design awards.

Homstvedt makes products that are tactile, interactive and engages the observer’s curiosity. In collaboration with his sister, graphic designer Hege Homstvedt, he designed a range of four stylized woodland characters, Fauna, that act as bookends (see fature image on top). Each one represents a native Norwegian animal (fox, puffin, hedgehog and bullfinch) and is made from Nordic rock, taking its colour and character from the natural tones and patterns of the stone.

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Improving functionality
Homstvedt has also collaborated with office furniture design brand Elementa to create the Elementa Ki Glowlamp, a lighting product designed to improve air quality and conditions in offices spaces by introducing more plants into the work environment. Homstvedt sums up his philosophy as an attempt “to simplify as much as possible in order to get to the essence of the product.”

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“In a successful design I find that the details that make it unique are also the features that improve functionality over a previous generation,” he says.

Amazing Norwegian Furniture Designer, written by Tor Kjolberg