At the start of Astrid Andersen’s new series Stel, a lecture held outside on a wharf, The Street’s 2002 music “Turn the Page” was blasting out of the audio program. It was a star-aligned, symbolic time, because the London-trained developer is starting a new chapter in her style life, this day centering the labor around herself.
Andersen’s much admired namesake menswear brand was focused, colorful, and streetwise. With Stel, she explained in a pre-show interview, “I have to sit comfortably at the center of it, perhaps even more this time because now it’s a women’s wear brand, and it is actually more about me and my personal references.” Stel also reflects Andersen’s evolution as a person. The designer had two children when she stopped her line and returned to Jutland in North Denmark. She’s not the person she was back then.
It’s difficult to shift gears in a fashion sense. Brands seem to take on lives of their own, and it’s easy to be pigeon-holed. Stel breaks with some of fashion’s conventions. The label will show in-season, so what is presented will be available for purchase. Seasonality is less crucial in the Stel equation as well as relevance. Collections will be identified by number (01, 02, and 03 were shown in Copenhagen), the concept being that you can intermingle pieces across “seasons” both in your wardrobe and on the selling floor. Andersen doesn’t think it’s necessary to give up a well-made piece of clothing just because the calendar pages flip. “The direct translation of stel is body”, she said, but it refers more to a foundational structure in a sort of industrial way, it also describes a set of collectibles—when you talk about a tea set, you would call it a stel. For me, that was quite an interesting starting point in terms of the idea of creating both collectibles, but also something that’s a new foundation.
Models were posing on scaffolding foretastefully, which suggests a number of metaphors. There’s construction, which relates to building a new brand, and the notion of support relates to her belief that clothes should work for you. Stel is, in essence, a kind of modular offering, but not one with the angularity of something like Legos or stacked Mærsk shipping containers. Movement, agency, and empowerment are part of Andersen’s plan. “When I talk about the brand, I have this tagline: tailoring that you can skate in, denim you can dance in, shirting you can travel in.” Freedom, joy, motion.