The "big four" fashion weeks with a long history have always been the style codes of different seasons: Paris's keyword is luxury and high-end, New York's is commercial and practical, Milan's is exquisite and noble, and London's is conservative and avant-garde. In addition to the four established fashion weeks, Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, has now quietly become another important fashion destination. As green fashion initiatives become increasingly popular, the sustainable development-themed Copenhagen Fashion Week has attracted a group of talented designers to participate in the gorgeous world of fashion design in an environmentally responsible manner in recent years.
Last week, the 2023 Spring and Summer Copenhagen Fashion Week just came to an end. Although Copenhagen Fashion Week, which was only founded in 2006, seems a little "immature", its influence in recent years is not inferior to that of the four traditional fashion weeks. As the first "colorful fire" before the arrival of the "Big Four", the popular brands of Copenhagen Fashion Week this season not only contain amazing environmental awareness, but also have strong wearability and rare colorful styles that have broken people's expectations. The stereotype of Nordic design as "frigid" has brought a refreshing Nordic style to the fashion industry.
Iso Poetism’s brand catwalk at Copenhagen Fashion Week. -Visual China
More than cold Nordic style
What does the fashion from Northern Europe look like?
The "rise" of Nordic fashion can be traced back to 2005. In 2005, Sweden's Stockholm Fashion Week was established; the following year, Denmark's Copenhagen Fashion Week was founded. With the combined efforts of the two, "Nordic style" has become its own style in the fashion circle. In people's minds, designs from Northern Europe often emphasize the black, white and gray of minimalism , and attract countless fans with their iconic cold temperament. But Cecilie Thorsmark, CEO of Copenhagen Fashion Week, said that the Nordic fashion industry is actually working hard to break through these stereotypes.
Nordic fashion is actually the style with the richest flavor of life - it disdains flashiness, but has an almost harsh and rational pursuit of design, texture, comfort and sustainability. The so-called minimalist is not boring and boring. It can also have rich details and intriguing aesthetics. Therefore, the "real" fashion concept of Nordic style has become more and more popular in the fashion industry in recent years, and its influence is also growing.
Laura Larbalestier, fashion director of Harvey Nichols, a long-established British luxury retailer, has participated in more than ten Copenhagen Fashion Weeks and has witnessed the growth of fashion weeks. She believes that the most attractive thing about Copenhagen Fashion Week is that most Nordic designer brands have a "realistic style" - not only are the clothes highly practical, but they are also practical and not exaggerated for daily wear, and the prices are relatively approachable. Therefore, it has a strong appeal to consumers.
As the most watched local brand of Copenhagen Fashion Week, Ganni has brought the most common lifestyle in Copenhagen - cycling to the stage. It is reported that Copenhagen has more bicycles (745,000) than citizens (600,000). The entire city is full of protected bicycle lanes, and people are accustomed to riding bicycles to go out for errands. This season, Ganni chose to hold his show on the bicycle path of Ofelia Plads seaside pier. The theme of "Joyride" is naturally inseparable from bicycles. The models wore the same beautiful styles as the runway and walked through the bicycle lanes for display. There is no need to worry that the gorgeous clothes cannot adapt to daily life "on the ground".
This year Ganni has relaunched fan-favorite styles: frilly seams, puff sleeves , and babydoll dresses. The overall focus is on daily life style, occasionally interspersed with formal evening wear. The overall tailoring is clearer and crisper, which is very friendly to people living in the "Bicycle Capital". The use of colors is not cold at all, with bold leopard prints, large floral prints, pink, blue, orange and even fluorescent colors, turning into a Copenhagen summer rainbow and falling into the audience's eyes. The "future fabric" Infinna™ developed by
Ganni introduces recycled textile waste, and the brand's Vegea shoes are specially made from grape skins left over from wine production.
Jade Cropper from Sweden is a younger generation of designers on the Copenhagen Fashion Week schedule, but she is undoubtedly the designer who gets the most attention. In 2020, Jade Cropper founded her own eponymous women's clothing brand around the theme of reusing deadstock and recycled materials. She was later selected as a Swedish fashionista and gained the attention of many celebrity fans on social media.
This season, her new collection is inspired by her mother’s photography of decaying leaves and flowers. The deep tones of black, white, gray, blue and brown show a multi-faceted female image full of strength and confidence; exquisite ultra-long high-slit black dresses and cool and uninhibited motorcycle girl leather pants suits have all found a home on the same runway. Cropper said that the women in her imagination are confident, independent and unique, and can be sexy and charming or Nordic cool girls, but more importantly, they are environmentally conscious consumers who care about sustainable development and stay away from fast fashion.
Environmental protection takes root on stage and behind the scenes
In April this year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the "Climate Change 2022: Mitigating Climate Change" report. Data show that the global average annual emissions of greenhouse gases from 2010 to 2019 are at the highest level in human history, but the growth rate has slowed down. However, the report also points out that without immediate and deep emission reductions in all sectors, it will become impossible to limit global warming to 1.5°C, and extreme weather will occur more frequently in the future. As one of the industries that has been criticized for wasting resources and polluting the environment the most, the huge environmental costs paid behind the fashion industry have attracted people's attention and reflection.
Although the idea of green fashion is no longer novel, for the huge fashion industry, there is still a long way to go to truly implement it. Cecilie Thorsmark said: "We need to be more determined to combat the climate crisis. Currently, all our efforts to protect the environment are offset by the huge production of the fashion industry itself, so the negative impact on the climate is still increasing."
Real change is needed Involvement of all stakeholders in the fashion industry. Cecilie pointed out that brands need to produce clothing in a streamlined quantity but can increase the number of wearing occasions and times; consumers can properly maintain existing clothing or buy second-hand clothing, thereby reducing the need to purchase new products. As the organizer of Fashion Week, she said: "We need to promote legislation more strongly, adopt incentive actions and innovative policy measures, and set and improve the standards of the entire industry."
Copenhagen Fashion Week was established in accordance with the law two years ago. The requirements of sustainable development have introduced a set of evaluation systems for brands' sustainable development practices. The system contains a total of 18 minimum standards that need to be met, covering six key areas such as design process, material selection and working conditions. These requirements make clear requirements for issues that have been criticized in the fashion industry for many years: unsold clothes from previous fashion collections will not be destroyed; disposable plastic packaging will not be used in stores or e-commerce orders, but recyclable packaging will be provided. Reusable packaging; the set design and performance production of the fashion show are all "zero waste".
In January 2023, these sustainable development regulations and standards will be officially implemented. By then, all brands participating in the Copenhagen Fashion Week catwalk schedule must meet these standards in order to participate in the display of fashion. In February 2023, Fashion Week will add additional sustainability standards and provide more specific guidance to brands.
Cecilie revealed that these standards are not "dead" and the organizing committee will modify them every quarter to ensure that these requirements can reflect the development of the industry and take action in a timely manner. Among these standards, the most eye-catching is the one just announced this year: a ban on the use of fur in fashion collections and fashion shows. Denmark is the largest fur importer in Europe, and this decision and move to "clear out" fur from the fashion industry will undoubtedly consolidate Copenhagen Fashion Week's status as a global sustainable fashion platform - making money is important, beauty is important, but ethics and the planet are important. The future is equally important.
Many of the details in front and behind the scenes of this season’s fashion shows are also dedicated to environmental protection.Many brands switched to electric vehicles to pick up and drop off guests attending shows, canceled paper invitations, and provided guests with vegetarian meals and drinking water packaged in paper. Iso Poetism, a local fashion brand in Copenhagen, mainly uses natural dyes and uses cold water dyeing technology to minimize water consumption. Samsøe, another local brand that advocates simple style, attaches great importance to the sustainability performance of its products. They believe that durability is the key to reducing waste, so they are currently committed to producing durable clothing made of high-quality materials. In addition, in the background, the brand studio moved the usual storage racks and also used clothes hangers specially made from biology. On the road to green environmental protection and zero waste, all major brands are enjoying themselves.
Beauty is a lifelong career. For Copenhagen Fashion Week, in addition to paying attention to beautiful designs, more consideration is given to humans, nature and the future, which is the key to making this beauty sustainable.
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