GRETE HENRIETTE’S MOURNING IS A LOVE LETTER TO BECOMING A WOMAN.
What does it mean to become a woman in your twenties? To inherit all these ideas about femininity, sex, religion, and respectability, and then spend years figuring out which ones actually belong to you?
For Grete Henriette, MOURN feels like an answer to that question. The collection is a love letter to women, to the intimacy and chaos of being young, and to the strange process of defining womanhood for yourself rather than accepting the version handed down to you.
Presented inside a mediaeval church, MOURN immediately places femininity within a space historically loaded with rules about the female body. Instead, it imagines womanhood as something that can be reclaimed. The church becomes both setting and subject. The altar becomes a stage. Garments become relics.
The Virgin Mary appears in The Veil, a shield of metal lilies, transformed into something simultaneously protective, erotic and armour-like. She is recognisable, but altered. Sanctity becomes something harder, stranger and more sensual.
Then comes the Last Supper.
But the scene is not the Last Supper as we know it. Models gather around the table, dressed in all-black outfits, featuring bras embellished with beads, chains, and crosses. The image is immediately familiar, yet completely reconfigured. The sacred and the gothic occupy the same frame. The church, the female body and the language of desire collide.
Maybe defining womanhood is less about finding one answer and more about refusing to let someone else give you one. Grete Henriette tells us more.
Flanelle: What was the main inspiration for this collection?
Grete Henriette : I was inspired by all the women in my life; it’s a love letter to my 20s, as last week I turned 30. I’m reminiscing and mourning my 20s and just me moving through womanhood, different sides to womanhood a lot of grieving, loving and processing of my upbringing which was very religious.
What was the main reason for choosing this venue besides your religious upbringing?
Honestly, I went here for a naked dinner last year and I loved the venue, so I was like, let me call them.
Can you tell me more about the performance?
Qazi & Qazi are two performers; they are sisters and they do these amazing Victorian mourning songs and the collection is called MOURN, so I thought it was a perfect match to work with them.
Can you tell me more about the juxtaposition between the religious iconography and the sex symbols that are represented by the lingerie?
I think that lingerie is, a thong specifically, as in the collection the thong is the motive, it’s the canvas to tell my stories and it is taking the sex out of it for me, as its not something that was put on by woman necessarily. I think that is very male-gazed, that kind of view, which I am trying to reclaim for myself and everyone else. It’s kind of putting it into my own narrative. Its also turning the attention inwards because its like home.
What is your narrative on the collection ?
The religious iconography comes from my religious upbringing, which is still a part of my identity today but I’m also an openly queer woman, so that’s a big part of my narrative.
What was some of the biggest challenges when you were creating this collection?
I had so much fun, there were no challenges. I had an amazing team working on it, everyone was so passionate about it and super amazingly involved. Ana who framed all of the beautiful artworks, and I have worked closely together before, to show it’s more than clothing; it’s a wearable art piece that is given a pedestal.
Credits :
Words by Words by Sophie Chan @sophie.chan._
Designer and creative director: Grete Henriette
Creative Producer: Rachelle Cox
Performers: Qazi and Qazi
Models: Riley Hundley Woodell and Marianna Karapanagioti
Photographers: Jenny Arrowsmith & Lucy Copeland-Tucker
Catering Direction: Cavan Malone
Catering Support: Sara Roudbari
Set Support: Lucia Barsegian
Hair: Lauren Bell
Hair Assistants: Jonny Albutt & Callum Oliver
Make Up: Sasha Chudeeva using Nars
Make Up Assistants: Morenike Akinnawonu & Evie Rawnsley PR & Production: Cellar Communications
Venue: St.Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace Partnership Support: Iona Agency
Ambient Music by Alex Stella
Sound Engineer: Kristina Rhodes
Assisting Team: Grace Thomson, Kat Craig, Juliet Evans, Molly Headon, Alexandra Plum, Holly Southern, Nadine Agdugabit, Aayla Bell, Tassia White, Ruby Bird, Anastasia Ellis, Charlotte Rose, Serene Lewis, Rhianna Atherton, Elena Esdaile, Hellena Buchegger
