Lulu Kennedy’s latest recruit is all about providing elegant solutions to everyday problems, lifting women out of the frump Performancewear
Johanna Parv Approaching the most energetic women in the street, she attempts to imitate their style with clothes. It is fascinating to see how these women rearrange their clothing (handbags on the shoulder, skirts tied around the waist of a bike) and then transform those quirks into elegant, engineered solutions. She creates clothes that are fast and frictional, and allow for people to easily move around cities. “I imagine the energy and power of tornados,” the designer says. “What does it feel like to jump into the full force of nature? Fashion can be so superficial but I don’t just want to make pretty clothes to fulfil some kind of utopian desire. I just want to make daily life easier.”
On the morning of her thirtyth birthday, she spoke from Hackney. She is currently preparing her debut collection for the Fashion Incubator that helped launch the careers of Jonathan Anderson, Kim Jones, Simone Rocha, Craig GreenAnd Grace Wales Bonner. “I guess the old lady finally got a chance,” Parv says, with a laugh. “I wanted to be a part of Fashion East when I was younger but I wouldn’t have been ready then. Plus, I submitted my application two minutes after midnight so I’m lucky to even be here.” Ten years ago, Parv emigrated from Estonia to do a foundation course at Central Saint Martins, where she stayed until she completed her MA in 2020, and has since been producing seasonal collections with the money she’s earned from freelance gigs.
Parv’s work is akin to couture, with its laser-cut lines, hand-stitched designs, and cavorting in cavorting, laser-cut lines, Parv sees herself as a product designer. She questions the needs of everyday women, and frees them from the constraints of traditional performancewear. One-shoulder dresses featuring built-in leggings and asymmetric side-slits are her specialty. She also makes backpack-strapped, leather handbags. “I don’t want to make every season completely different from the last. I see each collection as a continued improvement on previous prototypes,” she says. This can include subtle changes such as an increased thumb hole, slimmer pockets, and a durable ripstop material. “It’s very Estonian to be so practical but I like to make it glam, to make it elegant, and to make it chic.”
Much of this comes from Parv’s own experience of navigating London’s hostile, built environment where the threat of gender-based violence is an ambient part of the everyday. “Being scared of getting hurt,” she says. “It’s almost like I want to protect the female body. I treasure and cherish it so much that I want to create a protective shell.” But Parv, the practical designer, is less invested in the emotional subtext of her creations, and more concerned with their functional purpose. When inspiration runs dry, she doesn’t turn to film, art, or literature, but to the streets, where she crowd-sources motivation from real-life women. “I challenge them. I ask ‘Are you sure we need this? Yet another pair of trousers! How pointless!’ And then I realise ‘yes’, we do need these because they’ve never been done before.”
The grace and sophistication of eveningwear is not something that utility clothing offers, nor are they designed to meet the unique needs of women who live in cosmopolitan areas. It’s all well and good wearing Lululemon but where else can people find a floor-length nylon gown with an in-built handbag compartment than at Johanna Parv? Brands like Johanna Parv are becoming increasingly popular and well-known. Arc’teryx and Salomon in certain areas of London, there’s clearly an appetite for this level of technical connoisseurship, even when those pieces get divorced from their intended context. “People are like collectors,” Parv says. “The technology that goes into making these garments is so clever that they become desirable in their own right. As a Louis Vuitton dress covered in stones, it’s all about craftsmanship. It’s urban couture.”
But if haute couture treats the body as if it were an ornament, then Parv’s work goes skin-deep. Draped dresses, skorts and high-collared shirt are made of stretch nylon and lycra. They feel more like compression garments. They lift, hug and active HealThis might change the way you hold and walk. This is the kind of clothing that changes the feel of being in your own body, as if you’re being supported from within. “That’s what it’s about, looking elegant, clean, and beautiful but feeling tough,” she says. “This is what I’m most excited about people seeing from the collection on Friday. “I want them to see the muscle and strength in women, particularly older women. Similar Jil Sander However RoboCop.”