This Copenhagen Fashion Week showcased the best of Scandinavian style! A key movement to look out for has been designers and brands working towards a future of sustainability, from Ganni’s mineral based dyes to Jade Cropper using dead stock fabrics!
So let us take you on a journey of our highlights from Copenhagen Fashion Week SS23:
GANNI:
The SS23 Joy Ride collection is the epitome of what it feels like to enjoy Copenhagen in the summertime whether that be exploring the city by foot or bicycle. Often Ditte Reffstrup the creative director who with no driver’s license enjoyed cycling around the city, this idea was translated with models cycling at the end of the show.
The collection featured a collaboration with Levi’s, a sequel to the hugely successful capsule in February 2021. The brand was inspired by its Western roots with long prairie skirts, button-up vests and frilled collars. Models wore cowboy boots, plush bags and colourful denim. Denim that has been dyed with mineral-based dyes to create burgundy, pastel pink and yellow colours in the collection.
MUNTHE:
“When I design a new collection, I love to erase the line between creating casual, elegant, and graceful styles, and timeless, everlasting items. Why can’t they be both?
Art has always been an influence for creative designer and founder Naja Munthe when designing Munthe. For this collection, the Suprematist paintings of Ukraine-born Kazimir Malevich are one of the main influences. Its paintings, which do not have a particular motive instead, are a composition of abstract colourful arrangements. Emerald green, cornflower, powder blue, mushroom grey, and pure white added with a drop of vibrant orange and caramel show that the choice of the colour palette is a major milestone in this process.
JADE CROPPER:
This collection showed that Y2K trends are still very popular from bleach-washed jeans to flashing cut-out designs a fan favourite for the Gen-Z audience! Jade Cropper is on a mission to shift away from fast fashion that Gen-Z seems to love, to instead use waste fabrics, dead-stock, recycled and circular material. That’ll be valued by her audience for being versatile, multifunctional and timeless pieces.
HENRIK VIBSKOV:
This show was held at a bridge in central Copenhagen to explore the philosophical bridge between physical and emotional. For the designer this made sense as this Fashion Week has had an undertone of reconnection, bridging us back together after the pandemic. The models walked other various bridges throughout the runaway to help further this idea.
The collection, with its to-the-point name ‘Bird in Face’, draws its inspiration from the shapes and characteristics of a bridge structure, as models wore pieces that had arched and wrapped around the body. Similarly, the prints incorporate elements from modular systems and distorted motives to create a sense of movement and romance, saturated in serene blues and greens and jolts of orange.
STINE GOYA:
“I think it’s important to remember that we still have far to go with women’s rights, I think [this collection] was really about finding the strength inside women who actually [could say] what they wanted to do, so the inspiration is the Riot Grrls” of the early ’90s”.
The designer and her team channelled the spirit of these activists and organisers, this being showcased in less of the grunge style of the Girls but being colour. Highlights from the show included a vibrant citrus yellow silk dress, printed suits, softened with a white tunic and trousers embellished with pearls. Playful styling of biker shorts under a girlish pleated skirt is part of the brand’s DNA. Goya values the beauty of individuality and celebrates the joy of wearing colour.
Holzweiler:
This collection was titled “In Motion” which the company is after recently announcing its lucrative investment deal from Sequoia China Capital. The idea of being in motion was shown with hot air balloons suspended over the catwalk, gowns made from up-cycled parachutes donated by Norwegian sporting specialists Skyvoss, drawstring gathers and fringed crocheted harness fastenings.
RABENS SALONER:
Creative director Birgitte Raben spends her time between Bali, where the company has a dye house, and Copenhagen. The label pairs rainbow colours on wardrobe classics with a Scandi minimalist edge. Linen tailoring has a slouchy yet sexy silhouette, while a staple trench coat or blazer is layered over floaty vibrant dresses. Rabens Saloner celebrates light and easy dressing with the suggestion of a happy accident, typical these happy accidents can create a whole collection “Something will happen in the process, and it will say something to us”.
