DI: What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?
: The main idea is that it's convertible.
DI: What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve?
: I wanted to achieve beautiful and animal & environment friendly plus multifunctional alternative for classic real fur hats.
DI: What are your future plans for this award winning design?
: I want to develop it into perfection. Being awarded as a runner-up is warmly welcomed design feed back which inspires me to further develop my 2-in-1 hat.
DI: How long did it take you to design this particular concept?
: The hat is part of my head wear collection which took altogether 3 months to complete. It took 3 weeks from this hat idea to the completed sample.
DI: Why did you design this particular concept? Was this design commissioned or did you decide to pursuit an inspiration?
: I purely pursued my inspiration.
DI: Is your design being produced or used by another company, or do you plan to sell or lease the production rights or do you intent to produce your work yourself?
: My intent is to further develop the design first and produce the fruit of it myself. Maybe later, when I'm perfectly happy with the result, I can think of other options.
DI: What made you design this particular type of work?
: My passion for woolen traditional Scandinavian Rya rugs and interpreting them the modern way. I also want to create animal friendly furs.
DI: Where there any other designs and/or designers that helped the influence the design of your work?
: My own earlier convertible designs and the Christian Lacroix's designs in 1970's.
DI: Who is the target customer for his design?
: A busy career Lady, who doesn't have time to go shopping hats for different occasions and weather conditions.
DI: What sets this design apart from other similar or resembling concepts?
: It's animal and environment friendly faux fur. It's also carefully handcrafted by using traditional old tuft sewing technique that can be tracked down to the time of the Vikings. Also it being 2-in-1 makes it different from similar fur hats designed earlier.
DI: How did you come up with the name for this design? What does it mean?
: There's a zip hidden under the tuft in the horizontal cut at the forehead which means the prim of the hat can be zipped on and off. That's why the name is 'Convertible Hat'.
DI: Which design tools did you use when you were working on this project?
: I simply started sampling with the base cloth and different colors of special wool I use when sewing the tuft on. It's the best way to see how the chosen yarn colors match as it's complicated and time consuming copying the same effect on paper with any kind of media. However, if it's the client's wish to get drawings first I create the beautiful sketches first.
DI: What is the most unique aspect of your design?
: Definitely the Rya sewing technique used and also the convertibility.
DI: Who did you collaborate with for this design? Did you work with people with technical / specialized skills?
: No, I worked on my own. The hat has been tested by several people in different winter conditions though.
DI: What is the role of technology in this particular design?
: The base hat is made by using a sewing machine the tuft is hand-stitched.
DI: What are some of the challenges you faced during the design/realization of your concept?
: To find a luxurious material combination that would make the tufted garments last hard wear day after day, for a life time, like the Vikings tufted wraps would have done at the time. After testing my very first garment piece for 5 winters daily and deliberately putting it under lots of pressure, some wear and tear appeared in the original silk satin lining. I replaced it with thick polyester satin lining which after another 5 winters still looks like new, like the tightly spun tuft and the dense jute canvas base cloth do, too.
DI: How did you decide to submit your design to an international design competition?
: I have submitted my work - the convertible coat design - to this competition earlier and won the golden award. This year I wanted to get professional feedback for my new design.
DI: What did you learn or how did you improve yourself during the designing of this work?
: I was thinking of the development of the product from more industrial point of view.