Why there’s nothing like a Dane!
Forget Paris, New York, London and Milan - as Copenhagen Fashion Week sets the style agenda again ...
NEVER mind the heatwave, summer 2018 will for ever be remembered in the fashion bibles for one thing only: the long floral dress.
Worn by everyone from festival-going teenagers to the garden party generation, it is a brilliant, easy shortcut to looking chic — pretty, feminine, comfortable, and in a flattering midi length. And by God it has sleeves. Fashion suddenly seems to care about women. Hurrah.
You’ll have seen the dress everywhere, from the High Street to high-end boutiques — in fact, you’ve probably got a version in your wardrobe, or plan to bag one in the sales.
However, what you might not realise is that as we drift around in these demure but figure- skimming dresses, feeling carefree and cute, we are, fact, dressing Danish.
For years ‘Scandi style’ has conjured up visions of intimidating minimalist looks, with clever architectural shapes in austere black, taupe or beige.
More recently, it has channelled the cosy (yet expensive) chunky knits worn by Sarah Lund, the laid-back heroine of Danish noir series the Killing.
truly, we thought we knew where we were with Denmark — it was all about still waters running deep. But then the new Scandi style emerged when last year’s Copenhagen Fashion Week hit the headlines.
And while your own floral midi dress might not seem Danish in origin, make no mistake: the trend has been driven by a red crepe wrapover dress made by coveted Danish label Ganni.
throw in other current Danish style staples — sweet blouses, knitwear with quirky details and playful colours, wide-legged trousers — and you have a simple wardrobe that is about pared- down cool rather than attentiongrabbing ostentation. Comfort is key.
think liquid cuts, not binding silhouettes; a flash of neon sportswear mixed with feminine pieces; a double-breasted jacket worn with trainers, not heels.
the fashion world is all over it. Model Gigi Hadid adores Danish brand Holzweiler, actresses Sienna Miller and Margot Robbie wear Ganni, and the Duchess of Cambridge loves refined Scandi label By Malene Birger.
According to FashionUnited Business Intelligence, the Danish fashion industry is worth £6.2 billion, and it’s still growing.
Copenhagen-based womenswear brand Stine Goya; Saks Potts, famed for its colourful coats; and jewellers Maria Black and Sophie Bille Brahe are among Danish labels taken up by highfashion online retailers such as Net-a-Porter and Mytheresa.
And last year luxury goods giant LVMH bought a controlling stake in Ganni, confirming its white-hot status. With 21 concept stores across Scandinavia, 400 stockists worldwide, and plans to open a stand-alone store in London, it’s not bad going for a small, familyrun label from Copenhagen.
But this isn’t a fashion moment driven by only high- end brands. Swedish High Street giant H&M is matching Spain’s Zara in the wardrobe staples stakes, chased by its higher-end sister brands & other Stories, Arket and CoS, and on-trend Scandi label Monki.
So move over London, Paris, Milan and even New York — this summer’s hottest ticket was to Copenhagen Fashion Week, the largest in the Nordic region. Launched in 2006, it’s the ultimate hunting ground to scout what everyone will be wearing next season.
I joined the uber-stylish throng to see shows by Danish brands on the lips of every fashion insider: labelof-the-moment Ganni, exquisitely pretty Baum und Pferdgarten and By Malene Birger . . .
PERFECTLY PRACTICAL AND FEMININE FUN
I tHREAD my way through a wasteland of train tracks to get to my first stop: the vine-clad venue for By Malene Birger’s show. one of Copenhagen’s most established fashion houses, the brand — whose new creative director, Mathilde torp Mader, used to oversee Mulberry’s womenswear — offers a look that is both hip and classic.
Inside, I find myself in a beautiful dream: I’m surrounded by butterfly-print dresses, flounces and flat shoes, pretty sequinned drawstring bags, tanned, friendly faces . . . And that’s just the audience.
one guest poses for photographers in a billow of magenta taffeta, cinched at the waist with a scrap of blue silk, while a woman with a mane of dark hair steps off her bicycle in pink sandals and a red boiler suit.
Her bicycle? oh yes: many of the fashion crowd arrive not by chauffeured screen-tinted car, but by bicycle, having pedalled the 3km from the city centre.
Without fussing about their hair or make-up, they prop their bikes against the wall (not even bothering to lock them) and wander into the venue, cowboy boots and flip flops peeping from beneath chiffon skirts or cropped knee-length frayed jeans — chic, yet practical and joyful. the show delivers the same happy, outdoorsy energy, with fluid, relaxed silhouettes and smiling models who walk with a spring in their step.
the focus is on texture — fabrics in mustard and rust shades, taking the shape of fitted, yet flowing dresses with eye-catching cut-out circles, and trousers styled with long mid-thigh jumpers. the looks are finished off with chunky trainer-style mules.
there’s plenty of white, too, including on an exquisite dropshouldered coat worn over elegant front-pleat trousers.
this is a look we can all wear and
enjoy. As international fashion snowballed into the giant behemoth it is now, at some point we forgot that it was meant to be fun.
But here in Copenhagen, fun has returned, in the form of airy, affordable, lovely clothes that can easily be worn any time, anywhere.
Couple that with a focus on sustainability, which has gone from a fringe interest to being at the forefront of fashion’s concerns, and it’s no wonder the pieces are flying off the shelves.
After all, who wouldn’t want to be the Danish Woman? More approachable than the typical French fashionista, and less rigid and controlled than her impossibly glossy, New York counterpart, she is all open smiles, glowing skin and a carefree attitude, winging around the city on her oh- soeco bicycle.
GORGEOUS GANNI FOR ALL SEASONS
NEXT comes the Ganni show — and I simply cannot wait to see what the hottest Danish label of all will deliver. Everyone in fashion owns a Ganni dress or two and I am thoroughly excited to see what they label has come up with now. After all, we’ll inevitably all be wearing it — or at least a version of it — come next season.
I’m delighted to report that the show delivers. It’s unusual for a brand that has captured the heart of the fashion world to make clothes the rest of us can actually wear.
Ganni’s wide-legged denim, big, swinging jackets, fleece jerkins, sweet slip dresses and muchloved leopard print, are perfection made easy. The brand specialises in clothes that are both hyperpractical and super-stylish.
‘The Ganni woman can be everyone,’ says Ditte Reffstrup, the brand’s creative director. ‘It’s all about feeling comfortable in your skin.’
The items from the label’s collaboration with Icelandic outdoorwear brand 66°NoRTh are particularly great — I love the climbing boots, khaki mac and bum bag.
These are clothes that are made for living, not posing.
‘It’s about chasing a feeling,’ says Ditte. ‘In Copenhagen in summer it’s a tradition that friends get together and go out to the forest or the beach. By the end you want to live in the woods.’
And these playful clothes really do make the wearer feel effortlessly confident, as though you can do everything, no matter the weather. (Denmark’s rainfall means the macs and hats are definitely not just fashion fodder). It’s an ethos that translates perfectly to Britain.
ELEGANT AND HIGHLY WEARABLE
YET just as I am starting to worry that the delightful Danish dresses might be under threat from too much 2019 camping gear, I fall into Baum und Pferdgarten, the last show on my tour of Copenhagen, and am instantly reassured.
here, sprigged florals marry with big checks, stripes and pleats galore. The check trouser suit, striped skirts with big pleats, and block check knitted dress, are so elegant, pretty and feminine.
There are prints, fondant colours, deep V- back short dresses, and delightful silk-satin dressing gowns.
And, refreshingly, the models wear them with flat brogues and their hair in a bun.
Nothing is overtly sexual or excessive — it is all deeply, wonderfully wearable.
This laid- back approach extends to the Danish designers I see at the shows, who take their bows wearing dresses paired with trainers, bare legs, no make-up — just a smile and a wave.
The presentations end at dusk, and I walk across the canal to a warehouse bar where I have dinner alone — but for a breathtaking sunset — in an elegant Danish dress, bought during a quick browse around the shops between shows.
A silk maxi from Munthe, it’s long and forgiving, loose yet figure- skimming, and in a hypnotically gorgeous tawny leopard print. Created to flatter anyone of any age, it has the perfect cut and movement, and hides a multitude of anxiety areas, from the upper arms to the stomach.
Unlike the hard- to- wear designer pieces of old, Danish dresses are gloriously versatile. This one would work just as well over boots and tights in the winter as it does now.
Put quite simply, it’s my fashion dream. I can wear it to work, a party, or on a weekend away anywhere, from Rome to Rio, or ( more likely) Cromer to Clacton.
Looking out at the beautiful Cophenhagen sky, decked out in Danish chic, I couldn’t feel happier, more comfortable — or more stylish. Roll on next season.