Backstage with Grete Henriette

Grete Henriette is clearly an immaculate collector. The London-based designer has had us obsessing over her mesmerisingly ornate designs, where cutlery, crosses, watches, charms, scissors, horse brasses, and crystals hover over the body in a beautiful chainmail flow, reconfiguring themselves into modern mythologies. Religious symbols curve around exposed flesh while stacked metals and beads protect soft skin. Grete Henriette is also a bit of a pastor, playing with Victorian silhouettes and Christian iconography to establish a church of her own – one that centers misfits and oddballs as ultimate deities. Still buzzing from her LFW show, Hysteria in Tartarus, we caught up with the designer to talk about the collection, her hoarding inclinations, and the inspo behind one of her favourite pieces, the Lobotomy dress (spoiler: it involves a male “doctor” going around performing lobotomies in his van).

Hi Grete! Lovely to be in touch <3 Congrats on your LFW show – how are you feeling now that things are (hopefully) calming down a bit?
Thank you so much! To be honest, things have not calmed down much. The responses were great, and we are already working on customs for some fab clients. I can’t give too much away, though. NDAs have been signed.

I’d love to know about the role of materiality in your work. Metals, beads, and crystals carry such a grounded presence and have an almost musical quality to them, especially in your garments. What attracts you to these materials, and how do they guide your creative process?
Ever since I was a little girl, I knew I was a magpie. Growing up in Germany, we’d go to the Baltic Sea, and I’d spend hours weaving through the seaweed that had washed up on the shore, looking for treasures and amber crystals (gross!?!). Most of my inspiration comes from the materials or objects I work with, rather than a broad genre, era or person. 

How would you say your vision has evolved since the start of your career? Your design language feels very consistent yet more mature. It really translated to me in the show, where even the models felt charged with more confidence and indulgence, almost.
For one, I believe it’s practice. When I created my first piece, ‘Physical Remains of a Saint’ in 2021, using metalwork and beading techniques, I was self-taught. The more you dedicate time to handcrafting, the better you become. Then, it’s elevation. I constantly try to take my designs to the next level, especially since it’s become a TikTok trend to make dresses from jewellery, and many people copy my designs. While this is quite a painful experience – and I put myself under a lot of constant pressure to stand out – I always want to make something better every time, make something no one’s seen before, something that surprises people. I think about it like art, rather than fashion design, even now that I’ve been tapping more into ready-to-wear. Every piece is uniquely handmade; nothing is mass-produced. This makes every piece special, and how the designs stay true to me, as when I was making jewelry-dresses in my bedroom by myself. Overall, it’s a universe I’ve created, my work is how I communicate, process experiences and emotions, and I like to make people feel something. 

What are some of the references that inspired Hysteria in Tartarus?Victorian Nightmares, Horror, Distress, Depression, and the Beauty in Chaos. My favourite piece is the Lobotomy dress – a mini satin corset dress covered in vintage surgical tools. While listening to one of my favorite Victorian horror-podcasts, I learned the story of  Dr. Walter Freeman and his so-called Lobotomobile. The man used to drive around town in a camper van and lobotomise anyone with symptoms of ‘hysteria’ – mostly women with mental illnesses, depression, heartbreak, lust or grief, or simply non-conformity – with an ice pick. Crazy right? I was like, ‘I have to make a lobotomy dress.’

An ice pick?? Diabolical. I’m also really curious to know the significance of objects that found their way into your garments – from cutlery to scissors and watches. Is there a symbolic meaning behind their design implementation?
I’ve always been really inspired by materiality, shiny objects catch my attention… When I started to develop this collection, I went to second-hand markets every week in search of objects that would inspire me. I started to find brooches, cutlery, and other objects that just caught my eye. In a way, I feel connected to these discarded objects. The horseshoe dress, for example, was born after I haggled a whole suitcase of horseshoes at one of these vintage markets. In this moment, I felt inspired to create something that highlighted these beautiful metal pieces that had no other purpose. The way the dress was constructed felt pretty organic with my design language – it highlights both the materiality of the objects used and the meditative process of intricately assembling objects through chainmail-like techniques. 

You mentioned that you grew up in a religious household. What is your relationship like with religion today, and how does it inform your practice? It feels like your latest collection had more direct references to Christianity – and is more critical in using symbols such as crosses and references to hell. How does it feel to take certain ideas that you grew up with and recontextualise them so radically?
I find that my religious background has always influenced my creative identity. Visually, I’ve always found Christianity very inspiring, and these key elements have stuck with me throughout my practice and the development of this collection. At first, I wanted to escape this, but once the collection started to develop, I found myself unable to ignore the influence my religious upbringing had on me. This is when I decided to lean into it and recontextualise these ideas into a new sort of religion – one that highlights those who don’t belong in the usual Christian role. And that’s how I found myself at Hysteria in Tartarus. 

Your approach to actually inclusive casting has also always been so refreshing. What does your brief to your casting agent look like?
A big part of this collection was highlighting those who don’t fit in. When we think of the traditional model walking down a runway, they all look the same, but for me, this collection needed to go beyond the usual beauty standard. My two casting directors, Rachelle Cox and Jadzia Scott, did an amazing job. They both wanted to highlight inclusivity and have a cast of models that felt fully representative of the type of beauty I wanna surround myself with.

Way too often, there is an excuse that designing for non-specific-sized bodies or differently-abled people is way more challenging and incompatible with certain techniques. How do you make sure that your garments translate beautifully onto every type of body?
I think the looks should be designed with the body in mind – not all silhouettes work on a size 2 in the way they would on a size 18, and vice versa. 

If you had to wear one look from your latest collection every day for the rest of your life, which one would it be and why?
The corseted black satin tracksuit, I’m a comfy girly!!