Part 1

Name: Synne Sanden
Nationality: Norwegian
Occupation: Singer, songwriter, producer
Recent release: Synne Sanden's Unfold is out February 17th 2023 via Nordic Records.

If you enjoyed this interview with Synne Sanden and would like to stay up to date with her music, visit her on Instagram, and Facebook. We also recommend our earlier Synne Sanden interviews about Sexuality, Intimacy and Real Feminism and about the process for Unfold.



Describe your personal style, please, and how your choice of fashion allows you to express it. Which fashion brands or style icons do you personally find inspiring - and why?

I have always felt curious and experimental, but still I love what is sophisticated and beautiful. This is something I try to bring into my style. I like what is classy, but not classic, I like what is edgy yet feminine. I love oversized clothes, cool patterns, strong colours and expressing my experimental side in a soft, laid back and playfull way.

I have also always felt both feminine and masculine, soft and raw, and in my artist closet and my private closet you can see more and more of this mix and my androgynous style. I'm looking forward to exploring this combination further in my visual expression as an artist. I love blending original silk-kimonos with hoodies, and oversized leather jackets with beautiful skirts. It's in this combination between the feminine and masculine, the laid back and the dressed up I feel most comfortable and like myself.

I love design by Iris Van Herpen, Rama Rama, Noa Raviv and Anastasia Bull (among others). I also love designs by young Norwegian designers Tonje Plur, Elnaz Gargari and Merlin Kolk, that I have borrowed during shoots and in music videos. In terms of style icons I am inspired by Björk, Kelsey Lu, and also a japanese girl called hirano_yuka that calls herself @chobirobi on instagram.

I also love the style by my collaborator Carina Shoshtary who makes masks for me. Carina and me have very similar taste in both fashion and music, and from before we met we also had the same haircut. I guess we are soul sisters, in many ways.

Design by Noa Raviv   

Design by Rama Rama

Fashion can embody ideals that extend far beyond aesthetics, reaching into ecology, politics and social issues. Does this apply to you as well, and if so, in which way?

To me fashion, in my soloproject, definitly goes far beyond aesthetics. Unfold is a very feminist album, and I wanted to have a feminist style. Unfold is about sexuality and intimacy, about the value in healthy sexual nearness, and the consequenses of disrespectful sexuality.

I am very concious about having a style that does not objectify the female body, nor hiding it completely. I get very sad when I see women and artists using their bodies and showing off to get attention, to me this is reducing the woman into being just a sexy creature, and to me this is the opposite of feminism. So I try to not do this, but still not hide my body completely, and this is really a fine balance that can be difficult, but that is very important to me when I style myself.

To me feminism is about respecting the woman, the feminine, being comfortable with being a woman and seeing the woman as a full human being, focusing on the inside, but being comfortable with what's outside. So this is something I want to convey with my style in my videos, photos and on stage.

I also think feminism is about freedom, freedom to not follow the norms and what is expected, freedom to express and be every part of yourself, so when I have a more adrogonuys or rough style, as I often have, especially in my daily life, this is definitely feministic as well.

I also care about the environment and I try as best as I can to have a style that is kind to the environment. Sometimes I buy new clothes, but I usually buy vintage clothes both for myself and my band and dancers. Sometimes it's hard to find what I'm looking for, especially when I want my band and dancers to wear similar outfits, but I try as much as I can to find outfits on vintage apps or in vintage stores. I also often just lend or borrow pieces from designers, and see this is a good thing for the environment.

Carina Shoshtary, who is making pieces for me also cares for the environment and is very concious about which materials she is using, and usually make only unique pieces. I love when designers are focusing on being eco-friendly and are putting so much soul into every piece they make, that's the designers I want to collaborate with.

Below you can see a picture of me and my dancers, where I am wearing a mask made by Carina Shoshtary, and where we are all wearing outfits that I found through a Norwegian vintage app called Tise.

Photo by Lars Fremmerlid. Mask by Carina Shoshtary.

What was the relationship between music and fashion for you like personally? When was the first time that you became aware of the connection between fashion and music?

The relationship between music and fashion is very important to me, and I feel that music and fashion are my main interests. So to me it's a pleasure and a lot of fun. It feels like I privilige that I can dive into both of these interests though my profession, even though it's a lot of work and takes a lot of time.

As a musician, I know that I don't have to focus on fashion. Many musicians don't and just play shows in their daily jeans and t-shirts, and I have no problem with that. But for me it's really a connection that I care about. I love how the visual expression, with my masks and outfits, can strengthen the experience of everything.

Since I was a little girl I have been interested in fashion, and since I was 7-8 years old I have been drawing clothes and diving into my mother's and my grandmother's closet to try different clothes and outfits. The interest in clothes and music has been there since I was little, but the connection between them is something that has just been constantly growing, and I'm getting more and more into fashion and working more and more on my visual profile as an artist.

I have just designed a few outfits for myself, I usually use vintage clothes and style myself, but recently I got a designer to sew my design. In the picture below you can see outfits that I have designed / been drawing for myself and the dancers I am collaborating with. I drew the outfits and chose the fabric, and I got help from designer Marie Fossdal to sew them. Then I styled the outfits together with black mesh sweaters I found vintage.

This picture is taken by Lars Fremmerlid during a live-video shoot, and the mask is made by Carina Shoshtary.

Photo by Lars Fremmerlid. Mask by Carina Shoshtary.

Fashion can project an image, just like music can. As such, it is part of the storytelling process. What kinds of stories are being told, would you say? What can fashion express what music can not?

Fashion is visual, while music is not. I love combining music with a visual expression. But music is not a visual expression in itself, while fashion is. It can stimulate our eyes, and create a magical world that we can see in front of us and touch, which is really beautiful.

It seems obvious that fashion and music are closely linked, but just how that influence works hasn't always been clear. Would you say that music leads fashion? Is it the other way round? Or are they inseparable in some ways?

I think it goes both ways.

For me as a musician, the music comes first, and then the colours, the music videos, styles and outfits pop up in my head and then into reality. I definitly get inspired by design, but more in combining it with my music, because music comes from my emotions and what I hear inside, and the visual part comes from what I hear. For me, they are very connected, but I know that for many musicians they don't care about the visual part as much, so I think this is very individual.

I can't speak for fashion designers, what comes first or if it's inseperable. I just think that for some it's not connected, and they maybe care only for music or for fashion, and for some it is inseperable.