Minna Palmqvist’s latest collection brings traditional felting to high fashion

Artist and designer Minna Palmqvist’s collections contain big ideas; pointed critiques towards consumerism and musings on modern feminism, all presented via tongue-in-cheek garments brought to life in Palmqvist’s Stockholm studio. Her latest collection, however, is centred around something a bit more straightforward: wool. Teaming up with Kinna Ohlsson, a Swedish craftswoman who specialises in felting techniques, Palmqvist presents a collection that brings traditional handicraft into her singular artistic universe. “I’m so used to working with a concept or an idea that I get obsessed with,” says Palmqvist. “But here I had to realise that the concept is the material, which is quite liberating.”

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Palmqvist and Ohlson were paired up via S-P-O-K x Hantverkarna, a programme organised by Hantverkarna Stockholm (an associating that promotes local handicraft) and Spok, an initiative founded by industrial designer Jenny Norberg that connects Swedish designers with local manufacturers. The project match-makes six prominent designers with six skilled craftspeople. The resulting creations, including Palmqvist and Ohlson’s wool garments, will be presented at an exhibition at at Hantverkarnas lokal during Stockholm Craft Week.

After being paired with Ohlson, Palmqvist spent some time “getting to know” the wool, a material that was largely foreign to her. “Wool is the only fibre that you can take with your hands and make into fabric,” says Palmqvist, miming a squeezing motion. “I find that extremely fascinating.” Soon the duo were meeting weekly to conceptualise the collection, quickly deciding to work only with Swedish wool, a material that has no inherent economic value. “People burn wool because they can’t take care of it,” says Palmqvist. She was especially inspired by the way in which the wool can be sculpted to form a garment’s shape, using the fabric as its own sort of glue.

The result of these conversations and experiments is the capsule collection of hand-crafted felt pieces in Palmqvist’s signature thoughtfully playful aesthetic. A vibrant sculptural candy pink tunic, for instance, with wide sleeves and raised, textural ridges, is juxtaposed against a transparent purple mesh pants with a graphic red print (a play on a sort of monogram). A standout curly grey teddybear wrap-around coat – made entirely of remarkable fur-like wool – reminds us that the origin of this versatile material is in fact an animal. Rounding out the offering, a graphic t-shirt, met with felt stitches, baring the phrase: “2025 is hanging on by thread”. “It’s very luxurious,” says Pamqvist of the collection, noting the care and time that went into making each piece.

There were some constraints, Palmqvist quickly noticed, to working with wool. Namely, the shrinkage. “I wanted to make the pink sweater even bigger, but Kinna’s work table wasn’t big enough,” says Palmqvist. “It shrinks by 30 per cent.” The duo found workarounds, working with eyelets and heavy string closures to Frankenstein together larger pieces.

To honour the decadence of the capsule, Palmqvist turned to fashion photographer Isak Berglund Mattsson-Mårn to capture the looks in a high fashion editorial outside Östermalms Saluhall, just steps from where the collection will be exhibited. “I want to make the felting feel sexy and relevant, luxurious,” says Palmqvist. “I will style with pieces from my previous work for a full good vibe.”