Copenhagen is one of those places that makes you realise how much Northern Europe really has its shit together. University is free, the minimum wage is £15/hr, absurdly good looking, Céline-y women cycle everywhere (in heels) and the streets are so clean and pleasant that it’s almost unnerving. Seriously – if you’re from London, after five days there you can expect to find yourself weirdly nostalgic for overflowing rubbish bins, unruly drunkenness, and general squalor.
Last week, the city played host to its bi-annual fashion week, with designers presenting their SS17 collections in a series of shows that saw hay bales on the runway (Saks Potts), sets painted entirely in sugary pink (By Malene Birger) and one label even presenting inside the city’s outlaw biker-ruled neighbourhood of Christiania (HÆRVÆRK). The streets were also invaded by probably every heartbreakingly-disinterested skater boy/man-child in the world, in town for the Copenhagen Open and the launch of Nike SB’s collection with Soulland, as well as a host of designers representing their brands at tradeshows like CIFF. Basically, if you weren’t hashtagging #cph last week, where even were you? Here are some of the highlights – and check out the gallery above for more of the week’s best.
Backstage at Ganni, Copenhagen Fashion WeekPhotography Simone Steenberg
A misconception about fashion weeks that aren’t in one of the Big Four cities is that the brands who show are going to be tiny labels who don’t have the resources or reputations to present in NY or London. Not so at CPHFW, as evidenced by Ganni – founded in 2000, the brand boasts thirteen stores in Denmark alone, and has just been stocked on Net-a-Porter. The theme for SS17 was Space Cowboy, inspired by the all-American vistas of a drive from LA to Palm Springs undertaken by creative director Ditte Reffstrup. Think fringing, denim, snakeskin boots and a nod to ultimate cinematic tale of deserts and love so emotionally destructive it’ll burn your house down, Paris Texas. The casting was strong, featuring Nadja Bender and Instagram funny girl Tilda Lindstam, and a graphic t-shirt bearing the Space Cowboy slogan was available to buy fresh off the runway.
Copenhagen’s CIFF is not your average tradeshow. This season, they invited Fashion East’s Lulu Kennedy to put on a presentation of London’s best emerging designers, including Richard Malone, Marques’Almeida, Aries, Hades, Feng Chen Wang, Christopher Shannon and Liam Hodges, who showed their current season collections together as a group. The looks were modelled by people entirely street cast from Denmark’s evidently superior gene pool by Kennedy and casting agent Madeleine Østlie. Also present at the fair was an installation by discipline-blurring A Cold Wall, designed by Samuel Ross. In a space hung with thick industrial plastic curtains, two garments were encased beneath glass like art objects, as Ross also debuted a piece of furniture made in collaboration with CIFF and design tradeshow Northmodern.
You can pretty much count on any designer who puts their models in shiny yellow shop boots to do something interesting. Freya Dalsjø’s SS17 collection featured silky space jumpsuits, deconstructed (and then reconstructed) tailoring and moto-style activewear, and was shown on a cast of women who the designer knows and is inspired by – an effort to root the runway in her reality. The gang included model Helena Severin, performer Soho Rezanejad (who spoke into a microphone as she walked) and Klara Kristin, controversial Calvin Klein campaign star and one-third of the misadvised threesome that makes up the centre of Gaspar Noé’s 3D sexcapade Love.
Backstage at Fonnesbech, Copenhagen Fashion WeekPhotography Simone Steenberg
Fonnesbech is a label with serious history, having been founded way back in 1847. Their SS17 show starred the Danish Moosgaard model twins Amalie and Cecilie (who made their debut back at Prada for SS16) and was based around another desert theme, this time with the runway covered in a thick layer of sand. With the Copenhagen Fashion Summit in town every two years, the Danish city is a world-leader when it comes to pushing an agenda of sustainability. Fonnesbech are no different, designing with the goal of creating a wardrobe for women rather than encouraging them to buy into trends – it’s safe to say you can expect to see their collection on the backs of those super chic cyclists next time CPHFW rolls around.
