Denmark native Camilla Stærk draws on dual legacies of Danish visual heritage in her work as a fashion designer – the fluid lines of modern design, and the haunting fog brooding over Prince Hamlet’s Elsinore Castle – and blends them together in creating a unique and deeply personal vision of dress that has drawn worldwide acclaim.
Trained in London, Stærk found immediate positive reception: Her graduate fashion show at Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication caught the eye of both the International press and buyers at the boutiques Browns Focus in London and Maria Luisa in Paris. She went on to be awarded Top Shop’s New Generation Award three times, and her collections in London marked Stærk as “a future fashion star,” according to British Vogue, and immediately garnered reviews in publications such as Women’s Wear Daily, New York Magazine and Elle Paris.
In 2006, Camilla Stærk relocated to New York to launch her current brand, STÆRK. Embracing her new home, she channeled American influences such as Twin Peaks and the sculpture of Louise Nevelson into collections that are distinctively hers; darkly romantic in mood, sharply cut, and notable for the designer’s innovative working of leather and jersey.
Helena Christensen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, on December 25 1968 to a Danish father and Peruvian mother. She grew up in Denmark, where her childhood interests included music and photography. She began modelling at the age of nine. When she was 16 she accidentally entered and won the Miss Copenhagen competition, thinking it was a charity fashion show. She went on to win the Miss Denmark competition in 1987. In March 1990, she made her first of six appearances on the cover of British Vogue (see them here) and went on to become a part of the supermodel phenomenon of the Nineties with Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss. Christensen moved to Paris in 1991 to focus on her modelling career. She appeared topless in the Herb Ritts-shot video clip for Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game, which was then featured on MTV’s Sexiest Videos of All Time. She is an accomplished photographer whose work has been exhibited in Amsterdam and New York and appeared in Spanish Vogue. “My main interest is photography – the clothes, the shop and the modelling aside. When you work behind the lens you don’t have to consider any limits,” she told The Times.