Copenhagen Designers Search Worldwide Progress in Onerous Instances for Luxurious

COPENHAGEN — Instances are altering for Copenhagen Style Week, and the excitement is fading.

A number of the metropolis’s hottest manufacturers, reminiscent of Cecilie Bahnsen and Ganni, have moved their reveals to Paris, whereas others reminiscent of One other Side, Mfpen and Helmstedt opted to take a seat out the autumn 2025 season. The once-hot label Saks Potts closed its doorways in November final yr.

In her opening speech at Copenhagen Style Week, Cecilie Thorsmark, CEO of Copenhagen Style Week, described final yr as “traditionally difficult for our business.”

She emphasised “how unforgiving the enterprise panorama has turn into, and it positively served as a reminder that the urgency to adapt to shifting market calls for has by no means been higher.”

In an interview, she was understanding of designers’ selections to point out elsewhere.

“We solely want our manufacturers that select to showcase overseas the most effective of success,” mentioned Thorsmark, including that the relationships stay robust.

“Since Ganni went to Paris we’re delighted to have welcomed them as a valued patron for our New Expertise scheme, which has solely additional solidified their dedication to Copenhagen Style Week and our expertise incubator program,” she added.

The designers who did stage occasions placed on a powerful present, and it’s clear they’re all trying past Copenhagen to develop in a troublesome marketplace for vogue and luxurious.

Across the World 

Fairly Danish designs have now reached nicely past Scandinavia, and the manufacturers are pouring all of their effort into markets in Europe, the Center East, Asia Pacific and North America.

“We now have the U.Ok. and U.S. as our important and most necessary markets and as all people is aware of the U.Ok. has been impacted since Brexit and the inflation. We face softer markets and adjusting our plans and projections to adapt to the brand new scenario,” mentioned Stine Goya, a daily on the Copenhagen Style Week schedule, who staged her present on the Kunsten Museum of Trendy Artwork in Aalborg, a city 4 hours north of Copenhagen.

“The Center East performs for us, and we’re investing extra in creating these markets as we imagine that there’s additional potential for us on this area,” she added.

For fall, the designer toned down her colourful floral creations and offered 15 concise seems in a complicated lineup that included tailoring in midnight navy; a long-sleeve striped polo shirt with voluminous arms; and florals in watercolors on clothes and separates.

Goya has onboarded Browns’ former shopping for director Ida Petersson to its board with a purpose to facilitate “future growth and to get worldwide expertise.”

Petersson additionally sits on the board of Swedish label Filippa Ok.

Rotate mentioned the Center East and southern Europe are amongst its best-performing markets, whereas Germany tops the listing resulting from native partnerships with key retailers.

“We’re constructing on this momentum with native collaborations and activations to attach much more with our worldwide neighborhood,” mentioned Denise Christensen, the CEO of Birger Christensen Collective, the guardian firm of Rotate and Stay.

The concentrate on the Center East was evident as Rotate toned down its assortment, which up to now has been synonymous with flirty social gathering garments. The autumn outing didn’t have the spark of previous collections, and the suits had been off, though the fake fur coats added a much-needed sprint of persona.

The Rebels of Copenhagen 

Different manufacturers with a extra rebellious aesthetic are additionally pursuing worldwide progress.

Han Kjøbenhavn founder Jannik Wikkelsø Davidsen mentioned the enterprise is “performing nicely within the U.Ok., Germany and Denmark. Germany is a key marketplace for us. The U.Ok. is powerful by way of tradition and the viewers we naturally resonate with and the U.S. is one other necessary market the place we proceed to develop.”

His subsequent steps are to interrupt into the Japanese and Korean markets as a result of he’s enthusiastic about them from an “emotional perspective, as they actually join with our model.”

The present began greater than 20 minutes late — a rarity in Copenhagen — and drew in additional than 2,000 visitors into a chilly warehouse, the place some visitors arrived in tank tops and sheer bodysuits within the title of vogue.

The model’s assortment used fake fur, leather-based, denim and knee-high boots, typically enjoying with the shapes and increasing them so largely they may match into the costume departments of “Dune” or “Resort Transylvania.”

Much like Han Kjøbenhavn, Superb Chaos can also be eyeing Asia because it seems to develop.

The model focuses on antifashion with its distressed designs and T-shirts that replicate cigarette burns.

“We’ve realized that our major buyer won’t be in Copenhagen. We now have seen our market broaden shortly in Asia, particularly China, Japan and South Korea, so we’ll purpose to construct much more on that,” mentioned Marc C. Møllerskov, the model’s artistic director.

The model has gathered a handful of stockists from Chance in Seattle; Street Check in Taipei, Taiwan; Halo Hasselt in Hasselt, Belgium, to HBX by Hypebeast in Hong Kong.

“Our clients and neighborhood share this preferrred of being the antithesis to luxurious, so the present slowdown of luxurious doesn’t actually have an effect on us negatively,” mentioned Møllerskov.

“Our base and neighborhood is right here in Copenhagen, and we’ll perpetually have them on the forefront, as they’ve helped us construct and keep alive within the hardest instances. So we’ll by no means go away Copenhagen,” he added.

Good as Gold

Jewellery manufacturers are faring higher than their vogue counterparts, because the uncooked supplies, reminiscent of diamonds and gold, carry long-term worth.

“Final yr, we reached our greatest end-of-the-year gross sales with our channels up by 30 p.c,” mentioned Sophie Bille Brahe, whose new assortment had a celestial theme.

The jewellery designer used 9.55-mm or 13.55-mm pearls to duplicate the completely different phases of the moon onto necklaces, bracelets or earrings.

The model opened a retailer final yr on Madison Avenue, and Brahe mentioned the U.S. is her quickest rising market.

“The U.S. is up by 35 p.c year-on-year, which represents 25 p.c of our complete turnover,” mentioned Brahe.

The label shall be going into Bergdorf Goodman in March with a devoted area on the high quality jewellery flooring. 

Numbers had been additionally excessive for Tom Wooden too.

“The enterprise is prospering with regular progress throughout our key markets. In 2024, we achieved double-digit progress in income, with a 32 p.c enhance in on-line gross sales in comparison with the earlier yr,” mentioned artistic director Mona Jensen.

“We’ve expanded our footprint in Japan with our second retail area. Each shops have carried out over finances the primary yr of their existence,” she added.

Tom Wooden has discovered new enterprise within the U.Ok. and U.S. market, whereas South Korea and China are blooming.

Small and Regular

Many homegrown equipment manufacturers in Copenhagen are discovering assist for his or her creativity and enterprise ventures throughout the vogue business and town’s artistic areas.

“It’s one of many the reason why this metropolis has turn into a artistic mecca for rising manufacturers — there’s a real spirit of innovation and collaboration,” mentioned eyewear designer Vincent Catani.

The designer has simply opened his first showroom in Copenhagen and has already seen a agency inflow of natural footfall.

Catani mentioned Denmark and Finland are his best-performing markets proper now, however earlier than he expands, he needs to determine his model because the “largest luxurious eyewear model in Scandinavia.”

His new assortment, Florio, has been a yr within the making and the frames have gone into manufacturing with the producer Sabae Body in Japan utilizing Japanese titanium.

The designer was drawn to the fabric’s sturdiness and light-weight weight. He additionally checked out aerodynamics, from birds to planes.

One other rising equipment model on the rise is Aeslin, cofounded by Philip Reisz and Gustav V. Johansson. 

The pair launched the model in September 2024 with one crossbody bag in 4 colorways in 100 items that bought out immediately.

The model has seen gross sales throughout the U.S., U.Ok., France, Spain and Italy.

The following steps the model is is to extend its items and classes.

“We’re presently engaged on increasing our product line into clothes, with the long-term imaginative and prescient of constructing an all-around model,” mentioned Reisz.

All Concerning the Garments

Profitable manufacturers, reminiscent of Ganni and Cecilie Bahnsen, have all the time relied on industrial, versatile gives that attraction to a large viewers with separates and clothes for various shapes, sizes, and completely different events.

OpéraSport designers Awa Malina Stelter and Stephanie Gundelach took their cues from Denmark’s King Frederik X, who was coronated final yr and added daring geometric shapes and wealthy Artwork Deco textures with delicate lace clothes and exhausting embossed leather-based jackets and skirts.

“Certainly one of our best achievements is the excessive price of repeat purchases, which displays the robust, long-term relationships we’ve constructed with our clients,” mentioned Stelter.

Astrid Andersen’s sophomore assortment for her new label, Stel, encapsulated the artwork of layering together with her fashions ending the present holding a number of hangers of every merchandise they had been sporting together with padded gilets, pinstriped shirts and bomber jackets. 

“All of the items I create could be blended throughout shopping for seasons, making them versatile for each clients’ wardrobes and the promoting flooring,” she mentioned.

The designer mentioned that within the 5 months she’s been in enterprise she’s already witnessed “regular progress with a powerful direct-to-consumer enterprise and having secured key stockists reminiscent of Storm in Denmark and Selfridges in London.”

Turning on a regular basis garments on their head, Berner Kühl offered a set of superbly relaxed silhouettes that included a wool gray overcoat worn over a grey go well with; a black trenchcoat with its collars popped up like a vampire’s and a long-sleeve white T-shirt paired with matching pants that slouched on the hem.

“I’m making an attempt to be very pure and true to what I initially needed. It’s specializing in previous virtues like craftsmanship, tailoring, fabrications. It’s strolling that high quality line between boring and tremendous fascinating,” mentioned the model’s founder, Frederik Berner Kühl.

For the reason that pandemic, the model has seen important turnover progress year-on-year and from 2023 to 2024, they recorded an 89 p.c turnover. 

“The purpose has all the time been to construct a sustainable enterprise, and albeit nonetheless a really small enterprise, we at the moment are slowly reaching that time,” mentioned Kühl.

Alectra Rothschild, as an alternative, is conserving her enterprise small, and designing for a choose clientele.

Her designs and reveals are politically charged and knowledgeable. Her fall 2025 assortment was led  by the expertise of being “transgender in at present’s social landscapes. Each breath a trans individual takes is a revolution.”

Rothschild’s enterprise is a rarity in Copenhagen because it caters to a small neighborhood, the place she doesn’t produce in bulk and solely gives a made-to-order service.

Her designs have been worn by Michèle Lamy and Arca, the Venezuelan musician and report producer.