Dazed x Pandora CPHFW dinner30 Images
We made it through January – and while the first month of the year often gives us many reasons to feel blue, Copenhagen Fashion Week is never one of them. A jam-packed five days of AW25 shows brought an abundance of major moments. Cult skate brands were resurrected, office siren was taken to the next level and the trans community was defiant in the wake of Trump’s inauguration.
Shirts and ties were everywhere, as were oddly bulbous silhouettes (see here for all the best street style moments). Meanwhile, on the catwalk, beloved Danish designer Henrik Vibskov delivered his latest fashion show-cum-performance piece – a theatrical dinner party setup, complete with live band and drummers hidden by a sheet of plastic, sort of like furniture covered up while the decorators are in. Forza Collective provided an accidental highlight when a car alarm went off mid-show, providing an unexpected addition to the soundtrack. Although, to be fair, it was held in a car park.
Copenhagen Fashion Week street style AW2523 Images
At Iceland outerwear brand 66North’s presentation, the label kicked off its 99th anniversary celebrations with a trip back in time to some of the earliest designs. Fisherman’s overalls from the 1960s and earlier were laid out exhibition style, next to modern puffer and bomber jackets. A few days later, in the same basement venue, Copenhagen Fashion Week hosted its closing dinner in partnership with Dazed and Pandora.
The dinner featured a performance from Swedish artist Yaeger, and food by Eat Wasted, who, remarkably, are known for creating incredible pasta dishes from bread waste. The standout dish, ‘Wasted Pasta alla Mezcal’ (despite being made with mezcal) sufficiently lined our stomachs for an evening of natural wine, dancing, mingling and celebrating the end of another CPHFW season. The weather may have been below-freezing temperatures, but somehow, Copenhagen’s charm always manages to thaw even the coldest of hearts. Here’s everything you missed.
Kicking off the AW25 season was familiar favourite, Copenhagen-Paris-based brand OpéraSPORT. Founded in 2019 by design duo Awa Malina Stelter and Stephanie Gundelach, there was a buzz of excitement around the first catwalk of season, particularly since the brand has been known to cast various fashion editors as models. This season, Vogue’s Julia Sarr-Jamois was enlisted, while American supermodel Lindsey Wixon opened the show. Hosted in a 400-year-old brewery belonging to King Christian IV of Denmark, OpéraSPORT’s AW25 offering consisted of girlish florals, dropped waistlines, polka dots and ruched silks. An unexpected yet pleasant surprise was the finale soundtrack: the blaring vocals of London legend, Ms. Dynamite.
Bonnetje is known for cutting up existing garments and turning them into something new. Typically, it focuses on pre-owned suits and aims to deconstruct menswear. This remained the case for the brand’s AW25 collection, though there were some new additions thrown into the mix. Take window blinds for example, or giant plastic sleeves – typically used for filing paper – turned into dresses and skirts. Office siren may have been one of the biggest trends of last year, but Bonnetje took it one step further, creating garments from actual office stationery. The soundtrack took it to the next level, a phone that kept ringing and ringing, occasionally interrupted by the swishing and clacking of the clothes.
One of the highlights of the week was undoubtedly Alectra Rothschild’s AW25 Masculina collection. Titled Give the Girl a Gun, it was more of a protest or a performance than it was a fashion show. Opening the show with a segment of Donald Trump’s inauguration speech – specifically, the part in which he targeted the trans community – the US president was soon cut off by performance artist Cassie Augusta Jørgensen, who delivered a powerful spoken word performance. Then came the strobe light and one by one, the models (or rather, the dancers) took their turn on the catwalk. Though the clothes were made up of diamond-encrusted latex, dramatic shoulders and corseted waists, they were barely there. And as attention-grabbing as the designs were, the models themselves were the stars of the show. High kicking, back-bending, falling into box splits up and down the catwalk. Unlike the cutesy, demure stereotype that Copenhagen is known for, Rothschild brought punk energy to AW25 via an angry yet joyful celebration of the trans community.
Closing out day one, Stel invited show-goers to the headquarters of Denmark’s most famous architecture firm where we were grateful to be seated on plush sofas and handed natural wine. Now in its second season, creative director Astrid Andersen delivered a show that lulled us into peace and contentment. Slouchy streetwear, oversized denim and billowing shirts ambled gently down the catwalk, soundtracked by the soothing live vocals of rising R&B star Hillari. The collection was cool, calm and collected. Gender blurring, easily wearable and effortlessly elegant, the Stel customer is clearly someone who has got their shit together.
Swedish brand Deadwood took us to the rooftop pool of Villa Copenhagen for AW25. Titled Uncharted, the collection was inspired by the ocean’s vast unchartered waters. Fittingly, models looked deliberately half-drowned, dripping wet having stomped down the pool-side catwalk, with blue makeup on their lips and under eyes. Fisherman boots, wet-look leather and a spectrum of blue shades added to the theme, as did the wetsuit socks that squelched as they walked by. This show provided yet another surprising soundtrack as the otherworldly arias of Enya filled the space. Arguably the accessory of the week came in the form of fish-shaped handbags. J Dubs’ pigeon bag better watch out.
First founded in Freetown Christiania in the mid-90s, Alis has been the cult, IYKYK skate brand beloved around the globe ever since. This season, with the help of new creative director Tobias Birk Nielsen plus businessman and Rains co-founder Philip Lotko, Alis was back with a bang. The relaunch marked a major comeback for the brand after it was sold in 2022 – fitting, then, that the AW25 show was titled Comeback Culture. Patchwork pants, oversized belts, floor-length denim trench coats, white tank tops and bomber jackets made for a nonchalant yet refined comeback that is easy to picture flying off the shelves.
Chaotic by name, chaotic by nature. The Fine Chaos AW25 show took place in a sparse, industrial warehouse, where guests were ushered in by models wearing nothing but white tape over their chests and lower regions. The show space quickly filled up, overflowing with art-school-type characters, punky streetwear obsessives who would easily fit in on campus at Central Saint Martins. Ironically titled Ataraxis, which translates to ‘peace of mind’, the show was anything but peaceful. Soundtracked by a live performance from Danish group Kind mod Kind which floated between techno and experimental pop, models appeared wearing haunting red and white eye contacts, with scars drawn onto their faces. The clothes were shredded and, at time, taped together, taking reconstructed fashion to the next level.
