From the classroom to the countryside, Aknvas’ schoolgirl princess slipped back into her Stuart Weitzman wader boots from spring to muck around in the hay for resort.
Designer Christian Juul Nielsen was inspired by summertime vacations at his uncle’s farm in northern Denmark. Memories of whiling away the days riding horses, feeding chickens and weeding beets became “muses,” as he put it during a showroom walkthrough, and still stir feelings of childlike wonderment. It showed in this bucolic lineup, a bit like if Marie Antoinette joined Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie on “The Simple Life.”
Channeling his 6-year-old self, Nielsen imagined the farm as his stage. “When you’re dressing up as a kid, there’s not always a reason why you’re doing what you’re doing,” he explained, “it’s more like ‘oh, we’re getting ready to put on a show.’” Indeed, there isn’t a reason to jumble 18th-century ruffles, bows and flower embroidery together with Y2K and workwear tropes, but in Nielsen’s hands it sure looks fun to do so.
The designer has a way of injecting whimsy into humble fabrics that belie their utility, like pink acid-wash denim and the kind of blue striped cotton that’s usually reserved for bedtime. Both were reimagined as minis with buoyant petticoats underneath, that if not entirely royal-worthy, are at least worthy of wearing to a semi-formal wedding (perhaps, on a farm). According to Nielsen, Aknvas does “really well” with these sorts of unconventional, ultra-feminine dresses and he experimented further here with shreds of yellow barnyard straw intricately woven into a bodice before shooting out of a puffball skirt like rays of sunshine.
“What works for us as a brand is when I do something unexpected,” he said. “I don’t look at trend reports because when we do that, it doesn’t really sell.” Still, Nielsen is well attuned to how Gen-Z dresses up now to put on shows with TikTok as their stage — even his more casual items (satin cargos, knitted polos, frilly bloomers and bustier tops) seem destined to sell well.
