PHOTOGRAPHY Courtesy of Copenhagen Fashion Week
Despite the well-documented rain, the streets of Copenhagen were shining with more shows, more designers and more international press than ever before. The home for budding Scandinavian sartorial talent, Copenhagen Fashion Week has garnered international attention for its world-renowned street style, unrivalled support for its emerging talent and its serious commitment to sustainability.
Across the packed schedule, style stalwarts such as Ganni and Stine Goya could be found slotted in between New Talent designers Vain and P.L.N., showcasing Denmark’s famed minimalist stylings alongside the new wave of disruptive designers breaking away from its ‘hygge’ reputation.
Sustainability remained at the forefront of the collections across the weekend, with the organisation requiring that at least 50% of designers’ collections are either certified, made of preferred materials or new generation sustainable materials, upcycled, recycled or made of deadstock. The requirements also include that collections be fur-free, that the show and set design produces zero waste, that all backstage areas are single-use plastic-free, and that diversity and inclusivity are considered when casting models. Sounds too good to be true, right? And yet, CPHFW SS24 continued to prove that these requirements are not only possible, but that sustainable choices are available to all designers and should be celebrated.
Below, find out more ab the best sustainable SS24 collections that Copenhagen has to offer.
A ROEGE HOVE
On a wet and windy Monday afternoon, knitwear designer A Roege Hove opened the Spring/Summer ’24 runway season. Despite the drizzle, a packed audience was welcomed to the gardens of Copenhagen’s Designmuseum Denmark and perched on soggy benches, making new friends while huddled under umbrellas.
Described as “innovative knitwear”, the brand’s SS24 offering continues to reinvent what we have come to expect from woven yarns, producing sheer pieces in lime green, slate grey and pale pink that feel light, airy and ideal for layering, as suggested in the collection’s styling.
After taking home Woolmark’s Karl Lagerfeld Prize for Innovation in May, the brand introduced the recycled textile-waste fabric Circulose into its instantly-recognisable knits. The brand’s garments could be spotted among Copenhagen’s best street style fits of the week and emerged as one of the most talked-about collections as the days rolled on.
LATIMMIER
Finnish menswear label Latimmier opened its show with a personal performance, with the brand’s creative director Ervan Latimmier stepping onto the runway adorned in his drag persona Anna Conda, lipsyncing Cy Coleman’s ‘Big Spender’. It was a dramatic opening to an equally dramatic collection which tackled male archetypes of power.
Entitled ‘Position of Power’, the collection reinvented men’s officewear with shredded suits, ball-point pen-adorned shirt collars and stationery as accessories. Elsewhere, models walked down the runway with their arms tightly bound to their sides in body cuffs while audio clips from Succession and The Wolf Of Wallstreet played, and tops, shirts and caps featured the collection’s slogan of choice, ‘Money, Powder, Glory’.
ROLF EKROTH
For SS24, Rolf Ekroth wanted to connect with his inner child. “I don’t know if I’m a little old for it now, but I wanted to design clothes that still feel youthful,” he explained as we chatted at the CPHFW New Talent showrooms. In his first runway show in the Danish capital, the Finnish designer expanded on the success of last season’s quilted survival suits.
The resulting collection, entitled ‘Missing’, was a powerful display of rose-printed boiler suits, utilitarian outerwear and crimson red co-ords, inspired by the three generations in Ekroth’s family who he says “missed their youth.” With family remaining at the heart of his brand, this season the designer developed his use of woven textiles including a dress braided with fabric cables that Ekroth admits his mother spent over 200 hours producing.
PAOLINA RUSSO
Back in June, CSM alumni Paolina Russo were awarded the Zalando Visionary Award, leading the London-based brand to showcase its collection in Copenhagen for the first time this season. The win comes after the brand was a finalist of the LVMH prize, and have previously won the prestigious International Woolmark Prize. It’s safe to say the design duo comprised of Alex Russo and Lucile Guilmard has already built a reputation for innovative knitwear that utilises artisan craftsmanship, bridging the gap between heritage craftsmanship and technology.
For SS24, the duo showcased women as warriors in a collection entitled ‘Monolithics’. Low-waisted skirts, body-hugging silhouettes and wrapped scarf-tops featured heavily in the 23-look collection, comprised of recycled and biodegradable single-cotton fibres that had been lazer-printed on denim and cotton tees, a process that eliminates harmful chemicals for workers and reduces the environmental impact of the collection’s production. Furthering the brand’s sustainability credentials, the garments intentionally lack hardware, instead fashioning swirling earrings from wood, and using ‘nutshell’ beads as belt embellishments.
STINE GOYA
This season, Stine Goya took her collection home, literally. Entitling her SS24 collection ‘Homecoming’, the esteemed designer staged her catwalk down the street in which she resides, the illustrious Eckersbergsgade in the district of Østerbro, which can be found in the affluent Kartoffelräkkerne (potato rows) neighbourhood. Danish attendees shared that this is perhaps the most popular street to live on in Denmark, with houses seldom making it to market and are instead passed down through families. It’s easy to see why – set back from the bustling main streets of Copenhagen, the idyllic row houses cottage-like abodes in pastel tones, and is barely 100 metres from the largest of the Copenhagen Lakes.
Chatting to BRICKS after the show, Stine explained that she was inspired by the design codes from her early work, and refocused to highlight the construction and details of her garments. “I felt that I was coming home to something that I used to be as a designer,” she shares. The collection featured considered tailoring in suits, pencil skirts and evening coats ranging from hot pink wool to patent caramel leather. Printed denim also featured heavily throughout the show, as did pearl details on the buttons of blazers and adorning the straps of evening gowns.
While attendees sat on benches lining the street, Stine’s neighbours watched excitedly from the balconies of their homes with glasses of wine in hand, cheering on the inclusive array of models, including supermodel Helena Christensen who closed the show. The brand remains committed to sustainable practices and for SS24, utilised seasonal produce for its centrepiece – a dining table filled with lettuce leaves and 80s-inspired jellies, at which the models sat around for the finale as if they were neighbours at a street party.
MUNTHE
On Thursday morning, Munthe showcased an artful array of garments for its SS24 collection. The namesake label’s creative director Naja Munthe reminds us that she is, first and foremost, an artist, and her practice remains at the core of her sartorial designs to this day.
For its latest collection, which was held in the historic courtyard of Kuglegården conveniently next to Munthe HQ, the brand offered its signature silhouettes in embossed brown and black leather, patchwork denim and silky feathers. For prints, Munthe continued to celebrate female artists, this time marrying prints by New York-based artist Heather J. Chontos and London-based Aline Gaiad into graphic donkey motifs and brush-stroke gradients that mimic a summer sunset. Elsewhere, embellished florals on sheer mesh and chunky shearling belted waistcoats added to the collection’s day-to-night appeal, while striped shirt co-ords nod to effortless Danish street style.
ROTATE
Rotate’s reputation for providing the glitz and glamour in Copenhagen made it the perfect end to a packed week of shows. Held in the luxurious Hotel D’Angleterre, the collection played with the juxtaposition of demure Parisian architecture and the daring designs of London’s great 90s designers, both key inspirations for co-founders Jeanette Madsen and Thora Valdimarsdottir.
This contrast could be seen throughout the collection: in the colour palette, which married baby blue and creamy yellow with stark black and white; in the materials, which ranged from shredded leather biker coats to frilled pouffes of organza; and in the designs, which saw sophisticated evening gowns replace one bralette cup to reveal a dangling, embellished nipple tassel.
Madsen and Valdimarsdottir noted that the collection became a love letter to the late great Vivienne Westwood, who passed away shortly after they had returned from a trip to London, and her “punk meets couture” aesthetic. Despite the sparkle, the collection continued Rotate’s responsible design ethos, boasting 92% certified materials.
Enjoyed this story? Help keep independent queer-led publishing alive and unlock the BRICKS WORLD Learner Platform, full of resources for emerging and aspiring creatives sent to you every week via newsletter. Start your 30-day free trial now.