Small but mighty encapsulates the Copenhagen Fashion Week spirit as this season brings us nothing but elegance and flair!
While Copenhagen sits quietly in Denmark, unlike the busy, couture-filled streets of Paris or Milan, the city still remains alive with art, style, and Nordic passion. This Copenhagen Fashion Week welcomes new names as rising designers debut their spring collections. They are refreshing Nordic style with 30 runway shows and 15 presentations.
Copenhagen Fashion Week is known for its sustainability efforts, as each designer and house must follow specific sustainability guidelines. This year, the British Fashion Council and Copenhagen Fashion Week are aligning their efforts to improve the industry’s sustainability actions across the Nordic and British fashion markets.
Caro Editions — Copenhagen Fashion Week
While grey clouds loom over the city, waves of tafetta, charmeuse, and voile dance below, and fashion takes over the streets. This season, Caro Editions, under designer Caroline Bille Brahe, blends intimacy, bold fabrics, and playful designs. The scene unfolds in a raw urban concrete corner where steel and cobblestone craft a stark contrast against the delicate and vibrant silhouettes.
As models progress down the runway, a score of punk-pop unfolds the story within each design. Composed by Frederik Valentin, the music mimics the moving layers of fabric. At one moment, a euphoric tone is set, which then deepens to unravel fragmented memories. Closing the show, a soft melodic score celebrates vulnerability and visibility.
The collection pulls inspiration from Brahe’s own 2017 wedding to Frederik Bille Brahe. Dresses flow, and the delicate breeze sweeps up the fabric. The hand-stitched detailing pays homage to keepsakes and archival letters. Vintage silks echo stories of love. Tones of blush and cream, along with polka dots and checks, encapsulate the light summer of Denmark.
“Under The Bridge”
Brahe also references Yoko Ono’s Brides on Tour, as the collection blatantly defies the normative vision of the bride. Brahe’s bride asserts agency and tells her own story in delicate lace and silks. Soon enough, the pièce de résistance emerges as a bride steps onto the cobblestone. A lace hoodie delicately lies under a lace-covered white boater hat, with a contrasting solid black fabric in the middle. The bride is ethereal and celebratory yet approachable as she embraces joyous imperfection, memories, and individuality.
This season, Caro Editions collaborated with British heritage brand Mulberry to fuse craftsmanship with meaningful storytelling. With that, Brahe reimagined eight vintage Mulberry bags, spinning in her own Caro Editions flair. The effect of the bags is heightened by dramatic silk bows, delicate embroidery, and playful appliqués. With each bag, Brahe both reinvents and honors heritage, leaving a tactile memory of transformation.
The designs stand as a love letter to imperfection, to memories that last, and to the agency that clothing creates. With this collection, Brahe reminds us that resistance can simultaneously be radical and nostalgic, as the most admirable style carries a story.
Han Kjøbenhavn — Copenhagen Fashion Week
Han Kjøbenhavn’s latest collection looks back at creative director Jannik Wikkelsø Davidsen’s upbringing in Copenhagen. In doing so, Davidsen incorporates typical everyday clothing into the brand’s typical extravagant nature. The collection, titled “Another Day,” is a hauntingly poetic exploration of masculinity and the emotional weight of routine.
The collection bridges a dialogue between personal memories and avant-garde designs, bringing a bit of extravagance to Copenhagen. Davidsen transforms our daily rituals, still streets, and ongoing internal tensions into a visceral display of art. Each design is a character of its own, with a distinct story, identity, and lifestyle.
“Another Day”
In industrial Nordhavn, Copenhagen, a dimly lit multi-story car park became an eerie runway. There, a provocative collection rose from the greyscale catwalk as luminous light beams shine down. Oversized sculptural faux leather bombers, sheer layered tracksuits, and structural silver tops reminiscent of armor evoked a protective yet vulnerable mood.
Exaggerated proportions and tactile textures contrasted the familiar everyday clothing seen on the streets. Davidsen’s blown-up proportions and use of scale and material added a sense of discomfort and introspection to our own ideas of masculinity. A distorted trench coat made of heavy-duty canvas with an asymmetrically cinched waist and layered raw-edged panels served to further subvert convention.
Han Kjøbenhavn’s collection is a masterclass in emotional storytelling that expands and challenges the mind. Each design is meant to be felt, both physically and emotionally, and not just seen.
Royal Danish Academy
The best designers are not always the notable and established houses we all know and love. Instead, some of the best works come from the minds of students, and the students at the Royal Danish Academy are living proof. Their collections depart from commercial expectations by prioritizing experimentation, emotional depth, and radical storytelling. These emerging designers use fashion as a medium for critique and introspection, weaving narratives that reflect personal histories, social tensions, and speculative futures.
This season, the Royal Danish Academy featured 12 young and emerging designers who explore themes of sustainability, diversity, and identity. The show took place at PRESSEN, a venue in central Copenhagen. The venue transformed its raw, industrial atmosphere into an ambient runway, with a dim light casting an unsuspecting mood.
As each designer’s work made it down the runway, a new story unfolded, and individual spirits flew. One designer, Mengjie Hui, probed clothing as a shape and why it has the shape it does. In doing so, Hui pushed on the boundaries of what clothing and fashion really are and can be. Sculptural silhouettes of squares and cylinders in various arrangements took over the catwalk. Tubes, boxes, and body casts protruded from the body, covered in fire-red fabric.
Spring-Summer 2026
Moving from rigid silhouettes, Anya Belitskaya looked toward the beauty of a woman who never misses a reason to celebrate. Artificial flowers, garish tablecloths, plastic garlands, sequins, and bold colors painted and decorated Belitskaya’s woman. She styled blow-dried hair, electric blue eyeshadow, and bold lips to bring us back to the times of the reckless party girls.
In another section, Jan-Niklas Jessen tackled the common theme of conservative menswear. Instead of traditional forms and silhouettes, Jessen stitched a new kind of man with sculptural leather and suede as breezy silk crepe softened the harder fabrics. Wide trousers and voluminous silhouettes destabilized traditional views, giving a lighter and more majestic wardrobe to menswear.
Copenhagen does not shy away from making a statement despite being a smaller city in the fashion industry. This season, it reaffirmed its role as a cultural disruptor and incubator of radical creativity. The city proved that fashion here is not just about aesthetics; it’s about storytelling, identity, and systemic critique. In a world increasingly dominated by spectacle and scale, Copenhagen offered something more enduring: vision, integrity, and emotional resonance.
Article first published by Trill Mag.