Fashion
Luella Bartley
Hui-Hui
Peter Jensen
Katie Gallagher

Entertainment
Alan Ball
Summer Bishil
Dr. Dog
Nima Nourizadeh
Chuck Palahniuk
Anthology Recodrings
Marina Zenovich
Zimmerman/Berg

Artists
Desireé Holman
Corndawg
Matt Furie
Molly Landreth
Matthew Lock
Nikolay Saveliev
Christopher Schulz
Darren Sylvester

Fiction
24 Hours on L16
Nobody Eats Oranges...
Some Mornings

Peter Jensen is quietly conquering the world of fashion. He has a unique ability to seduce even the most stoic critics with his idiosyncratic designs, which have been inspired by sources as diverse and unconventional as Sissy Spacek, Mink Stole and the 16th century Princess Christina of Denmark. Standing out from the crowd is a skill that Jensen developed early on, growing up in a Danish fishing town of fewer than 10,000 people. “It was a very natural thing for me,” says the designer. “I liked dying my hair, you know, orange, red. I liked looking a bit strangely.” It’s no surprise, then, that you won’t find safe, trendy looks on the runway at Jensen’s shows. His style develops in surprising new directions every season, with audacious, imaginative concepts that never fail to delight.

        After fleeing to Hollywood as a teenager, Jensen relocated to the UK, where he debuted his first women’s wear line only two years after graduating from design school. The collection took inspiration from the life of fallen child star Mary Miles Minter—the Dakota Fanning of the silent film era. Minter was at the height of her success when her director (and secret lover), William Desmond Taylor, was shot and killed in his Hollywood bungalow. Minter’s mother quickly emerged as the prime suspect in the case, elevating the story from mere murder mystery to a tabloid scandal of epic proportions. Disgraced, Minter quickly abandoned her Hollywood career and lived out the rest of her days in lovesick solitude. “It was a fascination with how this whole system—machinery—builds you up, but there are certain rules that you certainly can’t break,” explains Jensen. “And one of the rules that she broke, unfortunately, was that she was growing up.”

        Jensen’s collections are rife with this type of narrative influence. “Every season has its own little story and character to it. It’s sort of a little imagination—a film I make in my head, I suppose.” Gertrude Stein, Cindy Sherman and Ingmar Bergman’s character “Fanny” have all been given the Peter Jensen treatment, with collections devoted to their various virtues. “They’re not obvious fashion icons, are they?” Jensen posits. No, these unassuming muses are overlooked heroines, each with her special brand of quiet femininity. They’re subjects of media scrutiny, victims of systematic repression and survivors of untold adversity. “I quite see them as strong women, I have to say,” says Jensen. The designer’s admiration for such characters is often coupled with a sly sense of humor. For instance, his Spring 2005 collection was presented by skaters at an ice rink—a dazzling love-note to leg-bashing ice skater Tonya Harding.

        Lately, Jensen has taken inspiration from John Waters (and one of Waters’ own offbeat muses, Mink Stole) for a collection that channels the notorious filmmaker’s middle-America pastiche. Using a palette of flat pastels, the first half of Jensen’s Spring 2008 collection looks to the untrained eye as if it could have been pulled from the closet of one of Waters’ bland Baltimore housewives. Closer inspection, however, reveals Jensen’s clever finesse: No matter how ordinary or outrageous the look he puts together, each article of clothing on its own makes a completely wearable, modern and lovingly prepared piece. As the models continue their strut down the runway, the collection’s looks become dark and rebellious—a tribute to John Waters’ malcontent anti-heroes. Jensen’s appreciation for cinematic spectacle is relentless and essential to the work. Echoing the program notes, which outline a character named Taffy (“neglected daughter of übercriminal and beauty icon, Dawn Davenport”), heiress/bank-robber Patricia Hearst’s daughter Lydia comes strutting down the runway at the show’s climax, sporting one of the collection’s most glamorous looks: a shimmering amethyst blue prom dress with a huge bow emanating from her chest like an ectoplasmic manifestation.

        The thrift store–chic Hawaiian shirts and drop-crotch jeans of Jensen’s current collection are hardly his first foray into gauche Americanisms. Last year’s spring collection was based entirely on the work of Tina Barney, seminal photographer of the late ‘80s New England prep set. The looks were in some cases almost identical to the conservative formalwear in Barney’s photographs, but with a muted irony that illustrates the designer’s amusement with the often indecipherable nature of America’s restrictive aesthetic codes. “As a European, you probably always have a fascination [with] America,” says Jensen. “You get fed so much about America here, so you’re curious, obviously.” As deep into the world of vintage tackiness Jensen may delve for inspiration, his clothes always remain startlingly contemporary. There is a very modern sense of sex appeal to the garb that’s easy to miss when you first glance at a look inspired by Christina of Denmark or Sissy Spacek. This isn’t Gucci sexy; it’s coy, indie-rock sexy. Jensen says one of his goals is to dress Jenny Lewis. “It’s a more covered-up version of sex appeal,” says the designer. “I don’t necessarily think that you have to show all this cleavage and this and this and this to be sexy. I think that’s quite unnecessary.”

        It’s often noted that Jensen has a keen knack for balancing art and commerce. He’s the rare designer with his head in the clouds and his feet on the ground, with a style neither ordinary nor impractical. His outfits may come to us from the alien context of a spectacular filmic universe, but they cross over into our own pragmatic realities with a seamlessness that’s hard to find in other avant-garde designers. “That’s important for me: people-wear,” says Jensen. “I just like it to be clothing. I absolutely hate the fact that some people think that they’re an artist, or what they’re doing is art.” Aspiring more to the accomplishments of Vionnet and Chanel than Viktor & Rolf, Jensen values craftwork over reckless flamboyance. “I’m certainly not going to buy a Balenciaga jacket and put it in a frame when I go home. I want to wear it, and for that matter, like it in that way. And if I make it dirty, well, that’s what I do,” says Jensen. “I think that’s very American, as well.”

You can find Peter Jensen’s clothing at Opening Ceremony in New York and Los Angeles, among other retailers. Check out peterjensen.co.uk for more information.