Fashion freaks will get a treat at the end of this month, March 27-28, when the fifth annual installment of the Vintage Fair takes place at Hornstull Strand, a funky venue by the water which has reinvented itself several times in recent years. I recommend a visit to the Hornstull Strand webpage, which is illustrated by none other than Joakim Pirinen, the country’s most brilliant cartoon artist. (under the category “press” are a series of Pirinen drawings).
The breakthrough in his career came in 1985 with the publication of “Socker Conny,” about an irresistable anarchistic slob.

The sun isn’t likely to come out in Stockholm today. It rarely does.  But my spirits were brightened by some super-fresh images of the brand new Spring/Summer 2010 collection of Sandra Backlund,  one of Scandinavia’s most original and talented designers. The Queen of Knitwear hasn’t lost her touch.  The photos are by Peter Gehkrke.

Paris-based multi-media artist and designer is probably most famous for her Cybercouture fashion collections, but she kicks ass as an artist, too.   She has an exhibit opening soon in her native country Norway: The Million Year Memory- digital art, Galleri G, Sandnes, Norway- Sunday 13-17.

High-heels can be liberating for women, adding height, improving posture and suggesting a sexy identity. On the other hand, high-heeled shoes can also be seen as instruments of confinement and torture, historically related to the crippling tradition of foot-binding women which started in China thousands of years ago.

That was one of the ideas dancing in my head when I got a glimpse of this footgear, which won first prize in the “Shoemania” design competition which took place last week in conjunction with the Nordic Shoe and Bag Fair in Stockholm. Contest victors Tove Jansson and Per Emanuelsson also created men’s loafers encased in metal chains, which symbolically express exactly how I feel when forced by some silly social convention to wear stiff, shiny dress shoes which pinch my toes.