Pipenco SS27: Muma Pădurii

The collection features branches emerging from the body, overgrown fabrics that appear as nature’s reclamation, and pieces that look rigid from afar yet soft and delicate up close.

Photography by Colin Savercool

Muma Pădurii’s reputation is rooted in fear, when in reality, she is a protector: the mother of the forest. In Romanian folklore, Muma Pădurii has been portrayed as a shapeshifting, monstrous entity that haunts the forest to keep children out. However, regardless of this negative perspective, Muma Pădurii guards the forest’s trees, animals, and nature from the harms of the outside world. One’s intentions in the woods ultimately determine which version of Muma Pădurii they will encounter.

Designer Lorena Pipenco embodied this contradiction in her SS27 collection, Muma Pădurii—how intention can become misconstrued with assumption. One may see Muma Pădurii as an unwelcoming aggressor, when really, her boundaries, care, and protection keep those exact risks at bay. “Sometimes the hardest parts of us have simply grown around the things we care for most,” Pipenco says.

Taking place at Cuna NYC, Pipenco’s forest, as well as those that inhabit it, is intentionally far from perfect. The collection features branches emerging from the body, overgrown fabrics that appear as nature’s reclamation, and pieces that look rigid from afar yet soft and delicate up close. Pipenco featured the brand’s signature oversized hats and avant-garde, geometric dresses, tops, and bottoms.

The Muma Pădurii collection continues its groundedness, softness, and protection through its collaborations. All of the fabrics used throughout were donated by FABSCRAP—Pipenco’s version of protecting the planet and nature around her like Muma Pădurii does in the forest. They also partnered with UGG to provide a sense of comfort as models tread through the “forest.”

Pipenco introduced a motif that she—and possibly any designer, ever—has yet to experiment with: a fuzzy, web-like silhouette seen on dresses, skirts, and shirts. These pieces were reminiscent of various things you’d see in the forest: spider webs, branches, moss, plants, and flowers. This motif throughout Muma Pădurii allowed viewers to hinder their assumptions about what a piece may look like at first sight, similar to the sole purpose of Muma Pădurii herself.

“SS27 does not try to turn Muma Pădurii into something she is not. It simply asks us to look at her again,” Pipenco says. “Beyond the monster she was made into is a woman guarding what she loves, frightening to those who come to destroy it, and capable of revealing her softness to those who come with care.”