Nanna Marie Christensen

Christensen’s MA thesis project looks into how women dress in competitive office environments through wardrobe studies. Through interviews and wearing journals, Nanna Marie explored their daily wardrobe choices, expectations, and reflections. The collection, as a result, reflects on the studies’ findings intersected with research on traditional office wear. "We can create a narrative around ourselves through dress. What we wear communicates to others who we are. In a work environment, there might be a set of rules surrounding dress that you have to play by to be taken seriously." The appropriateness of dress differs according to context and one’s own understanding and associations. This collection was shaped by parallels traced between dress in traditional office environments and leisure-time settings. These parallels are translated into garments that combine the two contexts into one piece, for example, by exploring work/leisure references and front/back incongruency. Draping, sketching and traditional garment types led the shapes for the collection. The different styles rely mostly on draping experiments. In the collection, garments and patterns traditionally found in the office space are reconsidered through the lens of leisure wear. Here, stripes and argyle play a vital role and were employed in knitwear, devoré print, and fabric manipulation. "The shapes I found through my draping were more playful and feminine than the starting point. After draping, I started to add recognisable details from office wear and leisure wear to my patterns and prints."