Slovenia’s own designer Jona Bednjanec arrived with her flamboyant collection “Knit-à-Porter” at this year’s edition of LJFW. Her playful knitwear collection highlights striking colour combinations, rich use of knitting technology, and especially a sense of keeping the country’s heritage alive.
Jona Bednjanec is a contemporary and unique knitwear brand crafted locally and intended to be worn globally. You might ask how local. Well, Jona herself majored in Textile and Fashion design in Ljubljana, with a main focus on knitwear development and design. When you add her Slovenian heritage to the collection, you receive a subtle mix of timelessness and tradition in which colours and patterns play a central part.
Jona’s main goal is to design products that last and just to be clear, she is successful in that regard. Her answer is quite straightforward. To reduce textile waste, she uses yarns that are leftovers from production waste (dead stock). That results in an outcome where the majority of products are produced in small batches. What you can see here are actually one-of-a-kind collections or made-to-order products. Her conception of local craftsmanship goes even further since she also gathers buttons/other materials produced and made in Slovenia. In short, Slovenia’s own success story, so to speak.
Finally, a couple of remarks on her design process. Knitwear is made and developed by her on a knitting machine or by hand. As a local Unicorn brand, her goal is to keep small Slovene knitting manufacturing still alive and to raise awareness of handmade pieces and textile heritage in Slovenia. Therefore, she regularly collaborates with small local family-owned knitwear production. No wonder Jona has become somewhat of a local star.
