Birgitta Bjerke - Crochet clothing for the counterculture
Birgitta Bjerke: At the Pheasantry, London, 1968 | Crochet clothing | Martin Sharp Archive | Philippe Mora |
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| Hippie Royalty on the Rocks, Ibiza, 1969. Photographer: Karl Ferris. Brigitta Bjerke and others are pictured wearing her crocheted clothing and swim wear. |
Contents
- Crochet art
- Famous clients
- Exhibitions
- References
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1. Crochet art
Birgitta Bjerke is a clothing designer noted for her crochet clothing and rugs which catered to members of the 1960s and 1970s counterculture. Her brightly coloured, knitted clothing included swim wear, skirts, dresses, tops such as jumpers and suits for men, along with blankets, hats and associated works of art. Birgitta was born in Sweden and travelled to England and throughout Europe during her youth. She moved to the United States in the late 1970s and became a costume designer in the film industry, working on numerous films from 1982 through to 2015 (IMDb 2019). Below are images of some of her work, focusing on items from the earlier period when the counterculture was booming. Over recent years, and with the 50th anniversary of the Sixties being celebrated throughout the 2010s, her work has featured in a number of exhibitions highlighting art and fashion of that era. The first of these was 100% Birgitta: The Fine Art of Revolutionary Crochet, held at the Centre of Southwest Studies in Durango, Colorado during 2009 (Miller 2009). Birgitta also featured in the Counter-Couture: Handmade Fashion in an American Counterculture exhibition of 2017 and Summer of Love Experience: Art, Fashion and Rock & Roll travelling show 2017-2019.
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| Birgitta Bjerke |
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| Hands dress, circa 1967. Collection: de Young Museum, San Francisco. |
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| Brigitta Bjerke, Crocheted hat and shawl, Ibiza, 1969. Photograph: Karl Ferris. |
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| Going Back to Sweden outfit, 1970. Source: MAD exhibition 2017. |
3. Famous clients
- Eric Clapton, lead guitarist, Cream.
- Roger Daltry, lead singer, The Who.
- Delaney and Bonnie, US band leaders.
- Joni Mitchell, singer and songwriter.
- Bob Weir, guitarist, Grateful Dead.
- Nastassia Kinksi, actress.
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| Nastassja Kinksi in Birgitta Bjerke dress for the film Paris, Texas (1984). |
Comment by pennylanecrochet (Instagram): Do you know who Birgitta Bjerke is? You need to if you are a crocheter, & if you love rock and roll! A genius crochet designer whose work was worn by some of the biggest names in British rock in the late 60s, this Stockholm native took her crochet skills to the famous Kings Road, London, & her unique style quickly spread. She lived in a small flat doing numerous commissions to pay the rent, but she truly enjoyed creating her own patterns & using the most incredible stitching & color palettes. Notable musicians that she crocheted items for included: Eric Clapton (the cardigan that I recently did a tribute to!), Roger Daltrey, Bob Weir, "a Beatle" (her words, LOL), Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix's & Roger Daltrey's girlfriends, & reggae star Jimmy Cliff (she also painted a design for one of his album covers!), all under the name "100% Birgitta". Her contemporaries she worked closely with included Ulla Larsson down at the Chelsea Antique Market, Oleg Cassini who owned the trendy Paraphernalia in NYC, Nigel Waymouth of Granny Takes A Trip, & Marijke Koger of The Fool! Marijke adored her work & commissioned Birgitta to do some pieces for the Apple Boutique that was owned/operated by The Beatles, but unfortunately the shop closed before she could sell anything. For such a talented individual she was often living on a shoestring: “I never had any money,” Bjerke explains, “so when everyone decided to go to the clubs, I went home & crocheted in my room.” 🥺 She went on to live on the island of Ibiza in Spain, taking her crochet to the next level, where her artistic & scintillating bikinis were all the rage, & her dresses were featured on Paris runways. After the heat of the era died down, she moved from London to San Francisco to Sweden and later to New Mexico, all the while creating glorious yarn artwork. During the 2020 lockdown she perfected a glorious multicolored coat named "Heart of Gold"! She lives in a cabin in Pecos NM, & as a crocheter myself who lives in a little cabin in Alaska with the same passion for yarn art & rock and roll, I feel she is a kindred spirit & is definitely my new icon!! 🧶🙌💜🌈🌟
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4. Exhibitions
* 100% Birgitta: The Fine Art of Revolutionary Crochet - costume design and painting spanning 1967-2008, Center of Southwest Studies, Fort Lewis College, Durango, Colorado, 8 February - 2 August 2009.
* Counter-Couture: Handmade Fashion in an American Counterculture, MAD Museum of Arts & Design, New York, 2 March - 20 August 2017; Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, MA, 2017. A room in this exhibition was dedicated to the work of Birgitta Bjerke.
* Summer of Love Experience: Art, Fashion and Rock & Roll, de Young Museum, San Francisco, 2017; Unter den Linden, Berlin, 20 June - 28 October 2019.
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5. References
Alice Newell-Hanson, Rediscovering radical 70s fashion in San Francisco attics, i-D [blog], 18 February 2017. Available URL: https://i-d.vice.com/en_au/article/nennjb/rediscovering-radical-70s-fashion-in-san-francisco-attics.
Belvero, Glenn, Counter-Couture at MAD Museum of Arts & Design in New York, ASVFO [blog], 13 March 2017. Available URL: https://ashadedviewonfashion.com/2017/03/13/hip-hippie-hooray-counter-couture-at-mad-museum-of-arts-design-in-new-york-photos-words-by-glenn-belverio/.
BFI, Brigitta Bjerke, Film Forever [website], British Film Institute, 2019. Available URL: https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2bb169d165.
Brigitta Bjerke, Facebook [website], 2019. Available URL: https://www.facebook.com/birgitta.bjerke.5.
Butchart, Amber, The Fashion of Film: How Cinema has Inspired Fashion, Hachette UK, 2016, 224p.
Seattle Recap, Communing With Fabric [blog], 16 January 2016. Available URL: http://communingwithfabric.blogspot.com/2016/01/seattle-recap.html.
D'Allessandro, Jill, Terry, Colleen, Binder, Victoria, McNally, Dennis and Selvin, Joel, Summer of Love: Art, Fashion and Rock and Roll, University of California Press, 2017, 344p.
IMDb, Brigitta Bjerke, Internet Movie Database [website], 2019. Available URL: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0084799/.
Vintage Crochet Legend: Birgitta Bjerke, Instagram, 2 June 2021.
Marks, Ben, Meet the Swedish Artist Who Hooked British Rock Royalty on Her Revolutionary Crochet, Collectors Weekly, 15 Mark 2021.
Miller, Patricia, Hooked - Rock royals were crochet artist's customer, Durango Herald, 13 February 2009. Available URL: https://www.jonimitchell.com/library/view.cfm?id=3179.
Penny Lane Crochet, Instagram, accessed 29 December 2024.
Sillman, Marcie, Feathers, Fringe and Bright Shiny Beads: Hippie Fashion is Art, KUOW - Sound stories, sound voices [blog], 17 September 2015. Available URL: http://archive.kuow.org/post/feathers-fringe-and-bright-shiny-beads-hippie-fashion-art.
The Summer of Love Experience at the de Young Museum, Soul Documentary [website / videos], 2017. Available URL: https://souldocumentary.love/summeroflove/de-young-sol-experience/.
Wright, Andy, Tracking down the lost fashions from the Summer of Love, San Francisco Magazine, 31 May 2017. Available URL: https://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/tracking-down-the-lost-fashions-the-summer-of-love.
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Birgitta Bjerke: At the Pheasantry, London, 1968 | Crochet clothing | Martin Sharp Archive | Philippe Mora |
Last updated: 29 December 2024
Michael Organ, Australia
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