Acne Studios’ creative director Jonny Johansson discovered the work of sculptor Villu Jaanisoo at just the perfect moment. ’I was basically deep into a “racing” mode [last year], into everything related to racing, and I stumbled across these amazing pieces,’ the Swedish designer tells Wallpaper* in the lead-up to his latest women’s show, which took place this evening (28 February) during a busy Paris Fashion Week A/W 2024. ‘They symbolise the mood I was trying to create, and they do so in a modern way.’
The artworks in question are huge, sloping chairs crafted from hefty recycled rubber tyres, which were made by the Estonian artist over 20 years ago, back in 2001. Lent to the brand upon Johansson’s request, these ‘furniture bodies’ sat imposingly in the Paris show space, setting the scene for a full-throttle, biker-inspired collection which the brand describes as being ’rooted in toughness and human form, leather and denim’.
Acne Studios’ full-throttle A/W 2024 show set
Approaching recycling through the traditions of sculpture, Jaanisoo’s practice involves a manipulation of harsh industrial materials into the silhouettes of gentler organic forms. Slightly unnerving to look at, these have ranged from rubber ducks and homely furniture made from snaking truck tyres, to undulating ocean waves crafted from forgotten speakers and fluorescent tubes. ‘Environmental issues have been important in terms of employing these, but to me, what’s even more interesting is the trace that the former lives have left to the recycled things I use,’ the artist said in a statement released ahead of the show.
Forever awed by the baroque masters who whittled heavenly figures from cold, unyielding marble, Jaanisoo’s process similarly involves both immense physical effort and a sensitive, prospecting eye. ’What interests me about working with tyres is the certain inner resistance of this material – it requires a lot of physical as well as mental force to shape them,’ the artist says. ‘The resistance that exists in each tyre makes the surface of the sculpture alive.’ For Johansson, it was this living feeling that drew him to the works. ‘Their size, which is of a non-human scale, made me think about nature and animals,’ he says. ‘At the same time, I loved the recycled and industrial aspect of them.’
Johansson has always brought a spectrum of artists into Acne Studios’ orbit. Dipping its pen into everything from advertising to architecture, the brand's start in the 1990s as a multidisciplinary creative collective has shaped something of an outsider approach to clothing design. Marrying influences from subculture and the visual arts with a coolly minimal, Swedish edge, previous projects have imaginatively drawn upon the works of American sculptor Peter Schlesinger, photographer William Wegman and seminal artist Hilma af Klimt, to name a few. ‘Acne Studios has always been about multiple disciplines in the creative field, and I believe that it stimulates the creative process and enriches what you do,’ says the designer. ‘It is inspiring.’
While Jaanisoo didn’t collaborate with the brand beyond lending his artworks to the set, his pieces seem to capture the spirit of the collection, which envisions a powerful woman whom Johansson wryly describes as being ‘fast, with a penchant for speed’. Much like Jaanisoo’s work, the collection plays with the sticky edges where contradictions meet: tough and soft, industrial and organic, familiar and new. ‘This collection is about the juxtaposition of an elevated femininity and a biker attitude,’ Johansson explains. ‘I wanted to look deeper into the archetypal codes of women’s fashion and confront them with the codes of Acne Studios.’
Denim and leather, the core materials of this collection and of underground subcultures like punk and BDSM – rebellious notes of which ring through the looks – have been at the heart of the brand since its genesis. ‘One of our first collections in the late 1990s was quite literally called “leather and denim”; two things that belong together,’ says Johansson. ‘I’ve always related to clothing through subcultural movements. When you want to feel tough you gravitate towards leather and denim; it’s like armour. It always feels right.’
Beyond twists on these two sacred Acne Studios materials, Johansson toughened up hyper-feminine shapes and fabrics – faux fur, girly handbags, and the little black dress – to take on a new, hard-girl edge. Elsewhere, heavy biker jackets, second-skin silhouettes and chrome accessories further played with themes of racing and kink. ‘This season it was about inputting leather into different situations, the way we tend to do with denim,’ the designer explains. ‘It was about taking codes we’re known for and twisting them completely.’ The result is a collection of women not to be messed with – formidably sexy, severe, yet polished in the contemporary way Acne Studios’ designs always effortlessly are.
Approaching what he does holistically, for Johansson a show is never just about the clothes; it’s about expressing a particular feeling, and the set plays no small role in this. Previous seasons have seen the brand transform the Palais de Tokyo into a saccharine pink-carpeted wedding venue – a tribute to Johansson’s own nuptials two decades before – and construct an enchanted forest that fondly referenced the designer’s childhood years in northern Sweden. ‘Like your home tells something about you, the show space can tell you something about the collection,’ he says. ‘The space you are in reflects you or your creation.’
This evening in Paris, among the confronting sculptures of Jaanisoo, this seemed to be a celebration of Acne Studios’ creative history as well as a gritty, complex kind of feminine energy – wild yet sophisticated; tough yet beautiful – though he’d much rather leave it to you to decide. ‘I wanted to bring a sense of scale and size, a moment that’s alive,’ says the designer. ‘But I also don’t want to direct people’s feelings too much. I want them to feel something individual or personal within the space we built.’
