Born in
Sweden, Hedvig Palm was discovered in 2010 at the age of 15, whilst eating at a
local restaurant. Signing with Next Models the same year, Hedvig kicked off her
modelling career in January 2011.
RUNWAY
January
2011: Valentino Haute Couture
September
2011: Alexander Wang, Celine, Jil Sander, Jonathan Saunders and Valentino
February
2012: Balenciaga, Cacharel, Chanel, House of Holland, Louis Vuitton, Mulberry
and Topshop Unique.
September
2012: Miu Miu, Roland Mouret, Giambattista Valli, Alexander McQueen, Vanessa
Bruno, Givenchy and Prada.
January
2013: Valentino Haute Couture
EDITORIALS / CAMPAIGNS
March 2012: Love
S/S issue. ‘A Chorus Line’, photographed by Solve Sundsbo, this exquisitely
choreographed editorial (based on 1930’s Hollywood musicals), also featured
other new models including Caitlin Lomax, Ajak Deng, Lida Fox and Josephine
Skriver.
June 2012:
Prada Resort look book.
July 2012: Italian
Vogue. ‘Collections’, photographed by Steven Meisel, featured groups of models
wearing the headline-making pieces from the A/W collections, including Prada’s
printed trouser-suits and Jil Sander’s cocoon coats.
January
2013: Look books for Christopher Kane (Pre-Fall 2012) and COS (Spring / Summer
2013).
Traditionally
used as a means of allowing wealthy clients to view haute couture collections,
the look book’s purpose is being extended far beyond its high-society origins,
and is now being deployed by high street titans.
The look book
is joining the digital revolution, transforming into a smartly-produced video. The
COS look book sits somewhere between catalogue and campaign, pausing on details
in the clothing, showing both how the clothes move and sit on the body.
Campaigns
have already made the leap to video, with the video acting as a companion piece
to the more traditional print ad, and the concept brings together one of
fashion’s oldest means of self-promotion and the latest technology to make a look
book that’s about functionality and purpose.
Hedvig
enters the fashion industry at a tipping point heralding enormous change: how
we buy and how we wear fashion has changed radically in the past five years and
fashion has adapted accordingly.
Even in a
climate of change, there are still constants and faces like Hedvig are destined
to thrive because they are an ‘easy sell’. Proving equally productive modelling
haute couture as the best of the high street, Hedvig’s appeal puts her ahead of
the pack.
The easy
sell is becoming increasingly important, but selling a product in the first
place has created a unique set of challenges especially for online fashion retailers.
Selling fashion is rarely about combinations of fabric and fastenings, but
selling an idea. For retailers, this means hiring models who are not only good
all-rounders, but confident communicators, as they need to convey, in a matter
of seconds, not only how an outfit looks but how it can make you feel.
The models
then have to apply those skills across disciplines. A walk that would normally
be employed for runway is now needed for a webpage (eg: ASOS, Net a Porter who
both use moving images to show a garment). Editorial skills are no longer the
preserve of high fashion: they are readily used for high street campaigns.
Production values have increased because our raised expectations demand more. There
are still easy sells, but they are hard won. Everyone has had to raise their
game.
The good
news for Hedvig is that she is already meeting the new requirements of the
fashion industry. Strong in individual skills, she is already able to draw from
runway and editorial experience and translate that into something that works on
the screen as well as the page. It is the equivalent of a theatre actor
learning how to act on film. Details become larger on the screen, movement
seems more exaggerated. Making the performance more nuanced, but not making it
smaller, is now part and parcel of the model’s job. The performance still has
to have impact, and Hedvig’s role in the COS look book convinces. It is in the
tiniest choices of movement that Hedvig communicates the feel of the
collection.
As the
presentation of fashion becomes an increasingly virtual experience, making that
emotional ‘must-have-it’ connection becomes ever more important. Access to
fashion may be at an all-time high but seeing a dress on a screen will never be
the same as walking into a shop, and seeing the dress in real time and real
life. Technology can only give us so much information - the rest is inferred. To
decide how we feel about the garment, and how it feels to wear it, only works
on a non-virtual level. Therefore, the model becomes the intermediary.
Communicating how the garment feels on the body, in both a physical and
psychological way, has become the most crucial aspect of a model’s armoury.
Two years
into her career, Hedvig is already shaping up to be one of the industry’s go-to
girls. Equally adept at haute couture, ready-to-wear and the best of the high
street, Palm’s multi-platform CV is the calling card of a 21st-century
model. Hedvig’s classic beauty and modern skills-set makes her one of 2013’s
brightest prospects. She is a face to watch.
HELEN TOPE