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“I just come from such a different craft, it’s such a different process, and so I realised that it’s okay not to design jewellery as a jewellery designer would do.”
In Sydney’s Ace Hotel, the award-winning conceptual knitwear designer Amalie Roege Hove joins GRAZIA for a tête-à-tête on her eponymous brand, A. Roege Hove, and the collection that’s brought her half away around the world from her Copenhagen home.
For those with a blanket appreciation for fashion, Roege Hove may be not a name you’re familiar with… yet. But, the Danish-based jeweller and silversmith, Georg Jensen, is undoubtedly a brand you’re well acquainted with and cherish.
Continuing the Scandinavian design house’s tradition of evolving iconic signatures through the lens of distinct auteur, the brand has looked to Roege Hove to reimagine one of their most revered categories, the ‘Moonlight Grapes’.
“All the great things about the Moonlight Grapes are also the things that are so different where my work is more strict and organised in a way,” Roege Hove tells me over coffee.
“I had to consider how I’d take this organic jewellery collection and make it more within our DNA because I wanted something worth the heritage brand of Georg Jensen, but also see that I was involved,” she added.
The result is a five-piece capsule collection that incorporates the technical practice involved in Roege Hove’s knitwear designs into a dynamic and tactical range.
Similar to the linear ribbing and sculptural fluidity discerned in her work, Roege Hove has reorganised the inherent fluidity of the ‘Moonlight Grapes’ into architecturally driven shapes that graduate and cascade. Systematic by design, the collection corresponds the silver ‘grapes’ into tessellating lines that oscillate from large to small as they fold around your wrist, finger or neck.
“Georg Jensen had already done so much within their designs of that collection, so I didn’t just want to add to that,” Roege Hove added. “I wanted to do something that would have a different expression… more clean and graphic in a way.”
To celebrate this fusion of creative universes and a cocktail of Danish design, Georg Jensen and Roege Hove fêted the collection with an intimate dinner inside the minimalist Utzon Room in the Sydney Opera House.
A setting pertinent for the honouring of Scandinavian style since this famed landmark was also the brainchild of another inventive Dane, Jørn Utzon.
Joined by Ragnar Hjartarson, Georg Jensen Creative Director, and Anne Sullivan, CEO of Georg Jensen Australia, we toasted the luxuriate’s 119-year history recontextualised through a bourgeoning perspective. A moonlight sonata, if you will.
Below, toast to the enviable aesthetic of distinct Danish design and uncover the hidden beauty entrenched in A. Roege Hove’s sumptuous craftsmanship.
GRAZIA: Your design language is rooted in the exploration of knitwear. How comfortable were you stepping outside of this to experiment with jewellery?
Amalie Roege Hove: I think the most difficult part was because I’m so used to working with something flexible—we have knitting machines in the studio where we’re able to adjust everything and have it in our hands—I felt like the silver was much more defined. I was trying to find the processes of how I can apply the silver to something where I can still move it.
“I was trying to be quite creative with it. I was attaching it to knitwear so I could also organise it but still have this sense of moving it around to get a sense of scale. I was trying to play a little bit with like, even though that process seemed a little bit ‘rookie’ in a way.”
I kept reminding myself that it’s okay not to design like the Georg Jensen team and that I just saw it differently. As soon as I made that leap between the bigger pieces and the smaller pieces in contrast I knew that would be the essence of the collection. I wanted to see it in different scales and place different parts on the body because I was still trying to define the right proportion. I knew I wanted to do something that had some size and weight, but was still useable and wearable.
GRAZIA: As you mention the body is something particular to your brand’s DNA. How else did knitwear inform the shapes and styles of this collaboration?
A. Roege Hove: Take the necklace, for example. It’s fixed in the small, but then it’s also soft. I still wanted something uniform. Like the broach, it has this element of control and something soft. I wanted to feel like you could wear the necklace with the contrast in the front or in the back, or have it turned upside down. I wanted this feeling that people could use all the pieces differently and they could choose to emphasise what they wanted in that piece. But also the ring was quite tough. It’s difficult to kind of like change the setting of a ring, so that’s why pieces like the bracelet and the brooch were where it started. And then like trying to explore ways where things are less free.
GRAZIA: Sometimes with collaborations, it can feel like someone’s just slapped their name on something and chosen a colour. This feels very organic to who you are and an evolution to the ‘Moonlight Grapes.’ What was your design process like?
A. Roege Hove: I’m so happy you say that because for me I did want it to look different but also within that family. The collection is how I genuinely want jewellery from our side [A. Roege Hove] to look. But it’s also difficult to know if people can see the same things. In the creative process, it’s so easy for us to make those links because we made them in our studio. But you’re not sure until everyone sees that. When I decided the process would be the different sizes, I started pulling out our archive pieces and arranging the beads within the rib structure and trying to design it [the jewellery and the clothes] together. That was the way I could envision it best. Even though these pieces are not designed for my knitwear alone, I wanted them to be a great fit with the brand. You know you have the knitting machine and then the needle bed, and I was placing beads there to mimic how you can change tension when you knit. I was really like trying to use the surroundings as if you were to design a new collection.
GRAZIA: It’s great to see jewellery explored through this new lens, rather than just following the conventional design methodology
A. Roege Hove: That’s awesome. It was also frustrating in the sense that I do believe in specializing in and being tight with what you spend your time on. We have frameworks for the way we knit and I enjoy that we work quite strictly in that way. So, applying a completely new material, I feel like it was such a big inspiration to get back to knitting. It was nice adding something different. But yeah, in the beginning it was frustrating. I was like “I do want to make really amazing jewellery” but the way that these really talented people at the design team at Georg Jensen do, I was like “I just can’t adapt that!” Yeah, it wasn’t natural. As a creative I think it’s quite normal, you just invent your own processes that kind of works for you.
“I learned quite a lot about how we work and the processes we have because I was forced to kind of speak more loudly about them in the sense that I had to do something else. But with that approach.”
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GRAZIA: As a young designer, what does it mean to you to be able to collaborate with a heritage Danish brand on a global scale?
A. Roege Hove: I was super excited. Georg Jensen is a special range for me and my family, but I was kind of scared that I wouldn’t be able to make something good enough. I don’t want to design anything, just to design something. So I went into it being like “If we’re going to do it we have to make something amazing!” which is a terrible thing to tell yourself before starting a creative process.
GRAZIA: Can we expect to see you use these metalwork techniques and new materials in your upcoming collections?
A. Roege Hove: This collaboration kind of opened me up. In that sense, it showed us the benefits of collaborating with others and inviting in all the materials or the processes. So I do want to do more, but I don’t want to do things just to do things. Right now I just really want to appreciate this project. But I’m really happy that I realised in the process that I can also use my creativity to do other things than knit. I used to think that’s the thing I specialised in and it’s okay if that’s the only thing I can do. But it was nice kind knowing you can do more than just one technique. We can carry more within our DNA and that was nice to experience.
GRAZIA: The world is besotted with Scandi style. What does it mean to you?
A. Roege Hove: When we talk about Scandinavian style before people would think that it’s more about a certain colour scheme or a certain way of working or a certain kind of minimalism. Now, I would say it’s much more about craft and much more mindful. It’s about transparency and inviting people in. So I think for me, I don’t really see it as a specific aesthetic as much as people saw Scandinavian style before. I think it’s much more a way of working and trying to be in the fashion industry but in another way so that when you go to Copenhagen you have a slightly different experience going to Paris. So, for me, I would hope that people recognise the value of things rather than just a specific style.
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