The Roma Journeys

- February 12, 2011

New York Fashion Week is well underway, one of my favorite shows so far has been Edun. I think this gypsy trend is going to be huge. Here is the style.com review.

Edun, By Nicole Phelps
Sharon Wauchob is now in her second season at the reins at Edun, and the picture of what the brand will become under the Irish designer's leadership is coming into focus. Her Fall runway, not unlike last season's, was full of real, wearable clothes. As hard as this might be to believe, you can't necessarily say that about all the contemporary labels out there. But Wauchob has apparently surrounded herself with a fresh, young team and she says that helps keep her in touch with what cool girls want to wear.

Let's start with the coats. The quilted khaki storm trench that opened the show has the X factor that will make it a popular personal order item with editors. In this era of influential street style blogs that really means something, and there was more solid outerwear where that came from. Knits were another big component: They ranged from a utilitarian ribbed sweater dress to Fair Isle cardigans inspired by Wauchob's own roots to a delicate black crochet skirt made by nuns in Africa. She has spent a good amount of time there in the last year recruiting craftspeople and researching factories; the company, which was founded by Ali Hewson and Bono, remains committed to its fair-trade principles even as it continues to grow under the aegis of LVMH. But it wasn't Africa that inspired the prints that make up the collection's third important element—it was Romany culture. The dense, abstract prints that appeared on a gorgeous ruffled silk scarf dress, among many other pieces, were lifted from old wallpaper. In the end, though, those details don't really matter. What does is how easily you can imagine this collection transitioning from the runway to the department store floor.

Edun Fall 2011

Edun Fall 2011

Sharon Wauchob was quoted in WWD as saying that she was inspired to design this "Gypsy" themed collection after seeing Joakim Eskildsen's book, The Roma Journeys. It's a wonderful photo essay about how Romanies live in several different countries. Here is how he described the experience

Between 2000 and 2006 I together with writer Cia Rinne undertook travels in seven different countries with a view to gaining an insight into the life of the Roma and the conditions they face. We always tried to spend a considerable length of time among the people whom we wanted to learn about and, if possible, to live with them for a while.

It was our own interest that initially took us to the Roma streets in Hevesaranyos in northeast Hungary, where we spent four months at the home of Magda, an elderly Roma. The other journeys to Romania, India and our travels in Finland came about through personal contact, while in Greece and Russia we were initially assisted by human rights organizations and in France by the Centre de recherches tsiganes in Paris.

These Roma journeys were by no means meticulously planned, and instead the product of a number of coincidences that enabled us to come into contact with the Roma. We endeavored to communicate directly with them. In most countries this was possible, and while in Russia and India we were accompanied on our travels, and thus had willing assistance.

We have frequently been asked what had triggered our interest in the Roma, but we were unable to provide a definitive, let alone exhaustive answer. What is certain is that once we hard started we were unable to simply stop continuing with the project. The more we found out about the Roma and got to know them, the more our interest in and liking for them grew.

In keeping with the different countries traveled, the photographic body of work is divided into seven series, the sequence of which roughly corresponds to the chronology of our journeys.