Via Snella

Download Autumn/Winter 2011 campaign PDF (PDF)

Download Spring/Summer 2011 campaign PDF (PDF)

Dear Jonas,
 
You have always been a short-sentence person
A kind of a silent dreamer
drifting timidly under the midnight sun
 
You would write
Hurricanes and lilies and animals and diamonds
                                                          on my rooftop
Just that.
And then sign in playful disarray.
 
Your star constellations became my buggy knits.
Your skinny dark-haired girls with the wooden cheeks…
I became one of them
 
And the needle would go on needling and needling
Paving ways to see
Ways to imagine
Golden arrows and bare trees
and the wings of a bird sewing a staircase towards the infinite sky
 
 
Now our correspondence lies piled on my wooden table
A few summer raindrops are falling softly in the half-light of the dusk
Though I never got to meet you,
I once imagined
you were a ruthless child running across the edge of the shore
On the line
the frontier line
A shaggy warrior clad in his can armour
 
Yours, Lina

The Via Snella Spring/Summer 2011 collection is here with a deeply felt tribute to Swedish artist Jonas Löfgren. The relationship between Löfgren and Lina Zedig, the brand’s chief designer, is an 11-year pen-pal friendship, nurtured by frequent open-air encounters. Conceptualized as a hybrid art-design project, this season’s venture draws inspiration from the idiosyncratic ambience and style of Löfgren’s illustrations and paintings, while reworking into fashion his unique male sensibility and charming taste.  Jonas has created, exclusively for Via Snella, a series of patterns, which Lina has transferred and skilfully adapted onto soft, pure fabrics and first-quality tailoring – pixel-tech merino-wool knits, impeccable eco-cotton trend sweaters and un-ironed rain-soaked nylon shorts. The pairing up of friendship and creative synergy has given birth to one of the most delicately detailed menswear campaigns of this season; a campaign that speaks to the heart of the man-of-the-moment and his innate passion for wilful simplicity and unforced finesse.

Jonas Löfgren is a Swedish illustrator and painter, based in Reykjavik, Iceland. Jonas has an extensive resume with previous and ongoing assignments for brands and magazines such as H&M, Lula Magazine and Passion Pictures, to name but a few. He is currently busy working on his new short film. More to come soon! www.bildmekanik.se

Download Autumn/Winter 2010 campaign PDF (PDF)

That winter night, we dared to be funny, we dared it for real. We put on striped pajamas, old velvet ribbons, harlequin leggings and plastic red noses. We blew up bubble balloons and painted on the paper sky a carousel of bright reds and pinks and oranges.

That winter night, we found ourselves back there, dwelling in the kindergarten of our early days –the drum and the flute marking the rhythm of the parade. You were the bearded lady and me the skinny clown. We exchanged the lonely presumption of our sparkling youth with the face of a lighthearted circus child.

That winter night we became the vaudeville of modern life. All that really mattered was laughter, joy and the indulgent irrelevance of our being. Golden wings and one more breath, here we were onstage, flying high over the turbulent waters of adulthood.

In winter season the mood may be gray and the clouds thick, but Via Snella AW 10 mens- wear collection proposes us exactly what we’re craving. Muted color tones and ultra-layered soft cotton fabrics with an underwear-like feeling, oversized pockets, zippers and graphic patterns such as squares and dots, blend the plethoric and dreamful spirit of a circus tale with the ethereal elegance of a choreography rehearsal. Regardless of whether you feel like the magician of the traveling troupe or like Merce Cunningham’s best disciple, it is all about a creative and permissive reinvention of the boyish dress up code, alongside the celebration of relief –Thank God, we can still play! Skip the formal stuffy jackets and the recession gloom and make it simple and bright. Don your new outfit and perform your other self. Life is more fun when you can dress like this!

Download Spring/Summer 2010 campaign PDF (PDF)

Remember the old days when we used to cross the small countryside path barefoot under the gloomy moon. It was summer, we were young and wanted to hang out in the city. Remember that eternal nonchalant summer when apartment studio parties were replaced by climbing ceremonies and swims across the lake. I was sporty, yet elegant and naïve. You were playing the neon-tiled dance floor on the meadow. We had brought suitcases with chic démodé garments from the city and donned them in the woods. We hated poppy nylon sweaters and boring surf-uniforms. Ours were looks, real looks. Sweat, waves, sand and heat were not a problem. Fashion was not a problem.

For spring-summer 2010 Via Snella proposes an alternative choice to modern mens’ sportswear. With a penchant for tiny details that calibrate functionality, minimalist dandyism and a diachronic marine cotton-wear touch, Via Snella ss-10 recovers the sophisticated relaxedness sports clothes used to have back in the thirties and the fifties. Warm-proof sweatshirts with reinforcements, materials resilient to heat and water, hidden textures celebrating nature and its winds, waves and raindrops, all clad in layers of an immaculate sustainable fashion. Summer is here.

Download Autumn/Winter 2009 PDF (PDF)

VIA SNELLA AUTUMN/WINTER 09 carries
the odour of your old classroom.

PIECES OF CHALK
and BOOKS and RULERS and
STAINED WORLD MAPS,
and your TEACHER in his
HUGE PASSÉ EYEGLASSES
and BAGGY THRIFTED SWEATER,
dictating on the blackboard
today’s lesson of INDOLENCE.

And YOU behind the desk
YOU, rebelling with endurance
against the UGLY CLUMSINESS
and SLOVENLY PRETENTIOUSNESS
of the adult wardrobe;
YOU, PRAYING for the FUTURE
to arrive
and for the classroom to become
a GLAMOROUS FASHION SET irradiating
BOHEMIAN BEAUTY, LAVISH ELEGANCE
and QUEER ETHEREALITY.

VIA SNELLA
BREAKING THE SCENT OF THE OLD
WITH AN ANTI-CONFORMIST AND LIGHTFUL RELAXEDNESS.

Download Campaign PDF (PDF)

Download Collection Poster (PDF)

Ok, we have had enough of this dry, western pragmatic minimalism. How about trying something different? What if male fashion took an unexpected twist towards the folklore sensuality of the hundred and one nights? How about unveiling the lazy buoyancy imbuing the looks of the contemporary Arab man? Yes, he is the one, our undisputable new macho idol—the light-coloured chemise unfolding indulgently on his shoulders, his quasi-transparent silky sweater betraying a fragile masculinity melded with Bedouin tales and stories from the Taliban frontier.

The Via Snella SS09 collection playfully reflects on the apparent dissonance between a rock solid macho stereotype and its ambiguous translation into feminine-like textures, tones and shapes, when it comes to the everyday Arab dress code. And yet, what is at stake here is neither the Arab “male uniform” nor uncontested masculinity ushering into a girlish narcissistic queerness. It is rather all about a ubiquitous hybridism deconstructing the very language of male fashion. And it is about legacies—unsettlingly autonomous outfit legacies carving a relaxed and natural core manliness beyond oppressive ethics.