Lars Andersson’s Cat and Mouse Conclusion

By Brodie Lancaster / September 30th, 2011 in Fashion / New York / 450 views

On the rooftops of New York, a girl descends staircase after staircase, unaware that her forlorn, cloaked paramour is traversing rooftops in the search for her. The film to showcase Swedish knitwear designer Lars Andersson‘s fall/winter 2011 range is the final chapter in a trilogy created by husband and wife directing team Evaan Kheraj and Luisa Rino, in collaboration with art director CJ Swanton. Local duo The Black Soft have composed a perfectly complimentary score for the film, filled with frantic strings to heighten the tense, desperate cat-and-mouse chase that unfolds on screen.

Upon the release of his penultimate film, Lars told us his inspirations ranges from the Middle East to Kurt Cobain. Eager to hear more about the concluding chapter, we asked him about the film’s direction and the trilogy as a whole.

PORTABLE: This is the third film Evaan and Luisa have made for you. Now that the trilogy’s complete, would you say it tells one, cohesive story? How is each film different from the others?
Lars Andersson: Working with Evaan and Luisa has been such a great experience because they always totally understand my vision and concept for how I want each collection to be perceived. The three films all speak to each other and in the sense that they are all different scenarios involving my idea of the Lars Andersson woman and man, and how they interact together.
There is a bit of a love story in each film, but it is always a darkly sinister, yet still romantic look at lust and attraction.
The films differ in that they each portray the same personalities, but in very different stages of their interactions.

To what extent is the direction of the film dictated by the collection? What were the key pieces from the F/W ’11 collection that formed the basis of these characters?
Each of the individual films are entirely inspired by the specific collections they represent. In this film, the F/W ’11 collection leant itself to the idea of urban survival—there is something very gypsy and a bit Mad Max about the feeling of it.
This collection is full of pieces that almost completely envelop the individual that is wearing them. Layering played a huge role here, and aesthetically the pieces maintain the dark mood that tends to come out each season in my work.
There was also this idea of these voluminous outerwear pieces that when peeled back reveal garments that are slinky, and almost liquid in the way that they cling to the body.

What has changed in your style or direction since creating the collection seen in the first film in this series?
My aesthetic develops subtly each season, but this collection is much different from the one seen in the F/W ’10 film in the sense that I have used bold color for the first time. You can’t see it because the film is shot in black and white, but there is a rich fuchsia, and a muddled-brown melange that has pops of turquoise and yellow running through it. My previous F/W collections have all been varying shades of blacks and grays.

How did you come to work with The Black Soft? What do they bring to the films that didn’t exist before?
I met The Black soft through my publicist, CJ Swanton at OMEN. We had some initial meetings with the two band members, Joseph Topmiller and Chase Coughlin, and it didn’t take long for me to realize that it was going to be an exciting collaboration. Each season we have sat down and had a creative meeting outlining the inspiration and the mood/feel for the collection. Based off of this, the boys from the band came back each time with an original piece of music that completely captured my initial vision, but in a totally unexpected and electrifying way. The music has been such an important character in each film, and they have come up with ideas and sounds that I would have never thought about using. The scores have added a huge depth of emotion to each individual film.
It has also been interesting because while they are primarily an electronic band, they experimented with a classical style for this film’s soundtrack, and the piece is consequently very orchestral in it’s feel.
I am personally really inspired by the music from The Black Soft, so it has been a total pleasure to work with them for three seasons now.

This film appears to be a Hitchcockian cat-and-mouse chase. Were you inspired by any directors, writers, musicians etc. while knitting the pieces for F/W ’11?
The film does indeed depict this idea of a man and woman searching and chasing after each other, but also the sadness that comes from never being able to actually connect.
While I was knitting samples and conceptualizing the collection, I was very inspired by the work of filmmaker Tony Gatlif. I watched all of his films, and they often dealt with subject matter surrounding contemporary gypsy culture. I was completely drawn into this world, and in particular was inspired by his film Gadjo Dilo (The Crazy Stranger). I loved this idea of an urban gypsy, and it really inspired the large, draped shapes seen in the collection, as well as the concept of heavy, practical layering. There is also a disheveled yet totally chic quality to the clothing I imagine these gypsies wearing, and I loved the idea of it all being very utilitarian.