Welcome to The Director’s Cut, an interactive column featuring fashion, beauty and career advice from RGNN Director and Founder, @isabelevabohrer.
Paris, Milan, London, New York. Call it the sacred golden rectangle of fashion weeks. And then there’s Scandi style. Over the last five years, Copenhagen increasingly started popping up on social media, with fashion industry professionals and influencers now flocking far and wide to the Danish capital biannually in January and August. But is Copenhagen Fashion Week (CPHFW) really worth the hype? And what does it represent for the fashion community worldwide?
From the schedule alone, it is clear that what started as a platform to showcase Nordic brands has evolved into a European, if not international, fashion hub. Yes, Nordic and especially Danish brands are still at the forefront of CPHFW. Day 1 and 2 is when CPHFW NEWTALENT, a talent support scheme for Nordic emerging brands with less than five years in business, brands show. This season, that includes four designers; Rolf Ekroth, Stamm, Alectra Rothschild/Masculina and Berner Kühl.
It’s a fashion week that amps up the volume as the week goes on (in contrast to fashion weeks such as that of Madrid, in which emerging designers traditionally show on the last day). The Zalando Visionary Award was presented to Sinéad O’Dwyer on day 3, and the Royal Danish Academy, along with the Swedish School of Textiles, weren’t missing from the program either.
The shows of Danish brands such as Remain and Gestuz were much anticipated, and everything culminated in the Rotate Birger Christensen show in the gardens of the Royal Library, next to the Parliament of Denmark. Pamela Anderson came along, too. Rotate took things to the next level, coinciding the start of fashion week with the opening of its new store in Copenhagen, -Kristen Bernikows Gade 6 to be exact,- all in collaboration with Vogue Scandinavia.
And so, the power of Copenhagen Fashion now transcends its local, and even Scandinavian, attendees and brands. Hailing from the rest of Europe, In Our Name Belgium showed at Louise Roe’s interior design studio. Tess van Zalinge, who has previously opened Amsterdam Fashion Week, opted for an interactive tableau vivant instead of a traditional runway show at another carefully selected location, the House of Finn Juhl, which designs furniture with the human body in mind. Diplomatic support was not missing either; the Czech Republic was home to the Our Shift fashion show and the Irish embassy hosted a full day of events on Irish fashion and sustainability. Those working in the fashion industry can moreover simultaneously attend the Copenhagen International Fashion Fair (CIFF), which started mid-fashion week from August 7-9, 2024.
In fact, the August edition of Copenhagen Fashion Week is strategically positioned for those in fashion; it does not overlap with other fashion weeks and moreover, many influencers can take advantage of their summer vacation to travel to Europe.
As a matter of fact, you don’t even have to form part of the fashion industry to attend a selection of the events. For SS24, Vogue Business for the first time started putting on a series of talks that are open to the public (if you missed them, you can also listen to them in podcast format on Spotify here). This year’s Alectra Rothschild fashion show, too, was open to the public. Also part of the CPHFW NEWTALENT initiative, she is the first openly trans woman to show at Copenhagen Fashion Week. That’s easier said than done, and Vogue called her show of January 2024 “history making.” Marginalized communities such as hers are hardly represented in the glamorous depiction of the fashion world.
So, too, was history made at this August’s edition of CPHFW. A blind woman for the first time walked the runway, with help of her guide dog, at the Sinéad O’Dwyer show. The street style ‘fits at CPHFW are hardly something regular people wear on the daily. And so, one cannot help but wonder, will such inclusivity, giving opportunities to the marginalized, become more than a trend? Can this actually trickle up to the bigger fashion weeks – and the world as a whole? “Down with the Ritz, long live the street!” exclaimed Yves Saint Laurent. Looking back on my internships at Vogue and W magazine many years ago, the fashion industry has become more inclusive. But there is still a long way to go.
To answer my initial question if you are thinking of attending CPHFW, go for it. The support for CPHFW that started around five years ago, when brands such as Saks Potts, Cecilie Bahnsen and Ganni became more mainstream, is not waning. Dyson, Polestar, TikTok, Pandora and all the other companies with a presence at CPHFW know what they are doing. Copenhagen, especially in the summer, will not disappoint.
Thank you, CPHFW, for inviting us.
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