With the vision to create a platform that inspires our community, we present Rezet Store Visits. Mixing art, culture, and community, Rezet Store Visits is a series that seeks to explore the people and places that inspire us. Introducing friends within the Rezet Community that have been with us since the beginning, and those we meet along the way.
Only 7 months after launching its first collection, Oval Square has dressed a number of danish and international creative actors and marked their arrival to the Danish fashion scene with an open mindset and endless possibilities. Based in Copenhagen, the brand creates genderless designs that sees beauty in contrasts and encourages individual expression.
With a background in the fashion industry, Design Manager & Creative Director Nadia Cerri wishes to distance Oval Square from the ‘old-fashioned’ way of working. For this episode, we visited her and the rest of the Oval Square team at their showroom located in Nordhavn, to talk about visions for the brand, how they combine trends and classics, and why creating a genderless brand is the future.
Oval Square was launched in August 2022. As a young brand, can you tell us a bit about the vision behind the brand? Are there any specific goals you are working towards?
Our vision since the start has been to create a brand that encourages individual expression, and every aspect that comes with that. In terms of product, we often have the starting point that the brand follows current trends but also creates pieces that can be cherished for years to come.
Both you and the rest of the founding team have been working in the fashion industry for many years. How do you think your experience has shaped Oval Square as a brand?
Many of us on the team have worked across menswear, womenswear, and kidswear, which really gives a broad range of experiences, references, and influences. We’re able to use our combined knowledge to create a brand that doesn’t design for a specific body type, and does away with what we’ve come to see as an ‘old-fashioned’ way of working where collections are split up based on gender, body type, etc.
You describe yourself as a genderless brand. Why is it important for Oval Square to be gender neutral?
The gender binary has long constrained the fashion industry, and we see gender expression as a fluid concept and therefore creating a genderless brand is simply the future.
How would you describe the ideal Oval Square customer? Is there a certain persona you wish to attract with your brand?
I think we certainly see the OS customer as cool, but cool can mean so many different things. Everyone who can see themselves wearing the brand is our ideal customer.
What does the name Oval Square mean to you?
For us the brand name represents contrast and diversity, we constantly work to tell a narrative of the beauty in contrast in our design, styling, and branding.
It seems like you have some very clear brand values that you follow - can you tell us a bit more about how you implement these values when designing your collections?
We are inspired by so many different types of people. We work a lot with trends as mentioned but also standing by classics with a twist. We work a lot with technical details that make the clothes more individual and more wearable. We work with a strong colour palette mixed with colours from nature so you can choose how eye-catching you want to be. All in all, the contrast that defines the brand is carried through into every choice we make in the design process.
Do you take environmental impact into account in your design and production process?
We work every day to become more sustainable, not only to lower our impact but to track our impact. It’s so important to us, but we are not quite where we want to be yet.
Where do you look for inspiration when designing a new collection?
Music inspires me a lot, our community never stops inspiring me, and I love to let myself be influenced by trends across all countries and industries.
Anything you can reveal about the future of Oval Square?
We’re working to develop even more functional details that make the clothes adjustable and wearable for even more body types and to be used more individually, and this is also more sustainable.