THE PROCESS

FROM INSPIRATION TO UNIQUE CRAFTSMANSHIP

Always starting with the materials and colours, relying solely on intuition to select colour and yarn developments Iben Høj looks a lot at art for new ways of combining shades. Once yarn qualities are finalized Høj works on stitch concepts, sometimes taking previous developments forward. This is playtime, when things may happen by mistake, or something suddenly develops and has immense potential. The knits are often constructed sideways, diagonally or upside down, always with the aim to exploit the myriad of beautiful shapes and forms that occur, whilst challenging the traditional garment shape by removing seams or constructing a garment in one continuous piece.

Iben Høj always works in a hands-on way, as all her styles are developed on her own hand-driven knitting machines, which ensures unique expression with a focus on details. In this way she draws on a heritage of craftsmanship based on simple resources, where it is not the machine, but the hands on the machine that create. That is how the originality arises in the combination of yarn, stitch size, colour, technique and the subsequent link with the body. But the final design is only completely defined when it has been through the hands of a highly skilled team of technicians and knitters, who always meet her challenges in terms of technically complex knits, time-consuming designs and small quantities.