Lena Hoschek

Lena Hoschek is one of those designers who is hard to categorize. The Austrian designer's influences range from Marilyn Monroe to punk, from rockabilly to traditional Austrian folk wear. She dresses like a pin-up but she's just as likely to be crowd surfing at a metal show as she is sketching in her Vienna studio. I got the chance to meet Hoschek and tour her incredible studio when I was in Vienna last month to attend Omega's Nuit Enchantee ball. She was dressed immaculately--in a sweet cardigan and full-skirted house dress fit for a '50s housewife--but a neck tattoo of scissors, thread and a pin cushion hinted at an edgier side. Her studio--which is really a whole house--is devilishly saccharine, too. Her kitchen (yes, there's a kitchen) looks frozen in the '50s but there are cheeky pin-up images tacked to the walls of her dark wood panelled office.