Ása Bríet Brattaberg

Tales Told in Tangles, BA Fashion Design: Womenswear, YourNOVA Award, 2023

She spun her thread and moved with a rhythmic circular movement that led her into the unknown. Under the spell of destiny, she continued into a place where there was no time.

With no feeling of time, she could only feel it become incredibly tangible in her hands with her repetitive movements. She started measuring time with the touch of materiality that came to live from her creations. Simultaneously she saw her own reflection in her craft. Reflection that one could only experience by themselves on a journey for one. The thread is the beginning and the end.

Coming from two small islands with a rich culture of craftsmanship and that have had to work for their independence, handcraft is in my nature as a medium to express. The design construction and the surface of the garment becomes the focal point, giving the wearer a garment that expresses, excites and evokes emotion. Memories entangled in previously owned garments, while keeping the rich quality of the craftsmanship, are the key. In my collection I’ve made every piece of textile by hand. I use a zero-waste weaving technique where I weave the garment straight into its shape from old shirts from my grandfather, who recently passed away. The wool in my collection is all hand-spun from wool I got from my grandparents’ sheep in Iceland. Innovative new ways of creating clothing from dead-stock fabrics and beads allow my creations to go into another dimension. Sustainability and leaving no waste behind gives me as a designer a challenge and an exciting task to create garments that become otherworldly.

Being led into the unknown in the repetitive rhythmic action of making, each piece gets the opportunity to be unique with a romantic feel. Continuous process, step-by-step gathered pieces of my heritage.

To personify the past, we become the present and debt of the future. We hold on to memories like threads in our hands. Connected by the red thread. Regardless of place or time. We sometimes lose the thread or feel like we’re hanging on to a thread. We may stretch or tangle, but we never break the thread. Quality of fate over time of which became interwoven with our surroundings. A mind lost in time, the memory of touch, left with a fingerprint, woven surface of threads bringing us as whole in to an unforgettable, dreamlike place.

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