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Today at Copenhagen Fashion Week, Remain Birger Christensen will present its second show since its reboot under creative director Martin Asbjørn, the beloved Copenhagen designer who shuttered his eponymous label in 2022.
Last season’s start was strong, with the label picking up 15 new retailers off of Asbjørn’s debut collection. Today’s show will cement the new vision for Remain, which owner Birger Christensen Collective is now hoping to scale, following the success of its partywear label Rotate. With the absence of major Scandi label Ganni at CPHFW this season, it could be the perfect time to gain ground.
“It’s always more nerve-wracking to do [show] number two,” says Asbjørn, who ran his eponymous label for eight years, before pulling the plug in 2022 due to the challenging economic climate. “After the first show, I was so excited, which has never happened to me before. At my own brand, I always felt that certain things could have been better. This [Remain] show came to life the way I wanted it to,” he says. “The response was really positive. But, even if the reviews hadn’t been good, I’d still be excited to continue.”
Known for leather and tailoring, Remain launched in 2019 as a timeless “affordable luxury” label, creating pieces that “remain in your wardrobe, but with a design edge”, Birger Christensen Collective CEO Denise Christensen describes. “Remain is focused on tailoring and leather, and they were my best selling categories at my brand, so I knew it was a good fit,” says Asbjørn, who soft-launched his vision for Remain with a pre-fall 2024 collection in January this year. While Rotate is a label for the dancefloor, Remain is a more classic, casual offering, designed to take a working woman through her day. Pieces retail from €150 for a T-shirt to €1,350 for a coat.
Christensen served as creative director of Remain until appointing Asbjørn, and, for the first couple of seasons, worked on just five looks per season, in three colourways. Soon, she realised she needed to push further. “Remain got bigger and bigger, and I needed to find someone to take over, to secure and strengthen the business,” she says. She appointed Asbjørn in late 2023, after meeting him through a colleague. “As soon as I saw Martin’s portfolio and his knowledge of detail and craftsmanship, I knew he was right for Remain. I had the ideas but wasn’t educated in these techniques, so it’s really exciting.”
Birger Christensen Collective is over 150 years old. It first operated as a standalone brand then as a luxury department store, stocking brands like Chanel, Dior and Hermès, before they opened monobrand stores in Denmark. Then, the group went on to operate luxury brands and franchises in Denmark, such as Hermès.
Christensen reinvigorated the group from 2018-2019, shifting focus from foreign luxury to launching Remain and Rotate as proprietary brands for the group (they are now the only brands in the collective). Birger Christensen Collective is the only affordable luxury fashion group in Scandinavia, and if Remain reaches the planned level of scale, it will be a real force in the region following the success of Rotate. Rotate hit €16 million revenue for 2023, up 4 per cent on the previous year. Remain’s growth plateaued: 2023 revenue was €4 million, consistent with 2022. Rotate has 350 stockists, over triple that of Remain (which has 100), but Remain is arguably competing in a tougher arena: the majority of Scandinavian brands are making classic fashion for the working woman, skewed heavily towards basics like button down shirts or neutrals. Now, for Asbjørn’s sophomore show for Remain, he and Christensen are keen for further growth, with strong ambitions to scale wholesale and build out the brand’s direct-to-consumer channel.
Asbjørn has already invested in new categories like tanks and T-shirts (for under-suiting), in order to “build an entire wardrobe” for consumers, he says. He will also launch a new handbag style at the show for SS25. “My version of Remain is very grown up. She will buy from the same brand again and again if the fit and the quality is there. But, she can also be pushed a little bit. You can make something for this woman that she didn’t know she needed.” These twists may include lace inserts, a sheer layer, a dropped shoulder or a balloon hem. “He challenges what has been,” Christensen says, “creating a more crafted Remain, to create a network of fans who will come back time and time again.”
“Founded only in 2019, the appointment of Martin Asbjørn as creative director of Remain has already seen a new energy run through the brand, with his strong tailoring and take on the silhouette matched with a natural flair for textiles,” says Cecilie Thorsmark, CEO of Copenhagen Fashion Week. “I am excited to see how the creative mind of Martin will entwine with the foundation of Remain as I have no doubt it will only continue to strengthen with each season.”
New categories, realistic scale
Christensen is keen to emulate the trajectory of Rotate with Remain, but remains realistic. “When we started Remain in 2019, Rotate became massive and Remain was almost a side project in a way,” Christensen says. “[Rotate] exploded in our hands,” she adds, as it bucked the normcore, largely beige Scandi trend the region was known for.
“Remain reaching the size of Rotate would be amazing, absolutely, but it’s going to take a little longer,” she says. “What we were able to do five years ago, we won’t necessarily be able to do at the same pace today, with the luxury slowdown. With a lot of the big online retailers struggling. With everything that happened with Matchesfashion. We need to be realistic.”
With Remain, Christensen is focused on building out the DTC business to future-proof the label against retail turbulence and to “own the customer journey”, as well as building out a strong wholesale network over the next two to three years. Birger Christensen Collective has always been very dependent on Scandinavian retail, Christensen says. She is keen to rethink the approach, working with international partners and investing in DTC to reach audiences across the globe.
The show itself will be a simple setup, with the audience up close and personal with the garments, says Asbjørn. “It’s going to feel like if a model walks by wearing a big dress, it’ll hit their legs,” he says. “I want everyone to see the fabrics and the whole collection up close. This season is about the clothes.”
This second Remain show is just as integral as the first, Christensen says, as it consolidates the new direction for the brand, “strengthening the identity and message of the brand even more”. The revamp of the Birger Christensen Collective has been a “long and costly” journey, Christensen says, but is already paying dividends, first with Rotate and now with Remain. “It’s been carried by the talents we’ve put in,” she says.
And, Christensen is keen to keep scaling the brand roster. “It’s important we attract new talents. I don’t see us starting a brand from scratch again. I mean, never say never, but in the meantime, we are definitely open to adding more brands to the collective that can sit well with Rotate and Remain, absolutely.”
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