To receive the Vogue Business newsletter, sign up here.
Copenhagen Fashion Week had plenty to offer this season, but one notable name was missing from the show schedule: A Roege Hove.
Over four years, Danish designer Amalie Røge Hove made an impressive name for herself with sculptural knitwear that takes the shape of the body’s natural curves. Less than a year ago — in May 2023 — her brand, A Roege Hove, won Woolmark’s prestigious Karl Lagerfeld Award for Innovation.
So, why did she quietly close her business last autumn?
“From the outside people thought it was going well,” the designer says, speaking fully for the first time since she made the toughest of decisions. The label was struggling to make ends meet for much of 2023. “In a way, all of it happened quite quickly, but looking back it was over a long time. We were so used to obstacles — every time we came to them, we’d find a solution,” Røge Hove explains. “We eventually came to the point where it was like, ‘we can’t do it anymore, there is no way’.”
All emerging designers are familiar with the challenges of business development in the fashion industry. And the biggest challenge of all, more often than not, is cash flow. News that a brand has been picked up by major retailers is generally presented as a success story, leaving a key hurdle often overlooked — how to produce the orders?
Røge Hove’s scenario will ring familiar to many emerging brands. She explains that she would often receive a down payment for orders from retailers and the rest upon delivery. But retailers’ payments were often months late, creating a domino effect for her brand and hampering business expansion or development. Budget was simply not available for the fabrics she was keen to develop or the knit techniques requiring specialised looms.
“We ended up growing too fast,” she says. “We put ourselves in too risky a position because we didn’t know any better. We had seasons where we were taking on too many retailers.”
She acknowledges “multiple problems in the supply chain” that became too difficult to solve. “In the end, you don’t have a strong financial background to solve some of these issues… It just became all about cash flow, and it was killing everything creatively.”
How Røge Hove became a brand
Røge Hove studied fashion at Central Saint Martins and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, before working with local designers Mark Tan and Cecilie Bahnsen, but she didn’t necessarily plan to launch her own brand. Before a trip to Istanbul with her sister in 2018, she knitted a stretchy, ribbed bag to take with her, posting a few photos of it on Instagram. The technique and materials used enabled the unstructured piece to take on the shape of the objects placed inside; fresh produce from the market, for example, transformed the bag into a sort of unique fashion sculpture.
Folks began reaching out to enquire about buying the bags, so Røge Hove made a few more in an array of colourways. Then, small Japanese stores began to take note and requested to stock them. A cool, new ‘it’ accessory had been born — almost by accident.
“I started the brand with no money. Because actually, when I started, I didn’t even know I was starting a brand,” Røge Hove says.
A Roege Hove evolved into a fully fledged business, anchored by Røge Hove’s innovative range of knits: including sheer, striped gowns that twisted around the body, cardigan tops that tied at the front, and bodycon skirts and dresses that chimed with demand for more size-inclusive offerings.
The designer applied for various grants through the Danish government and began showing her collections at Copenhagen Fashion Week in 2022, bolstered by a supportive local creative community and the fashion week itself. Her first shows were funded by CPHFW’s Newtalent scheme, intended to uplift rising Nordic creatives through financial support, mentorships, access to partnership offerings and PR resources for three seasons.
Her clothes swiftly drew promising media attention. It was encouraging to see people respond so positively, she says, but she felt swept-up in a whirlwind. Suddenly, there was a fashion calendar to adhere to, orders to fulfil and a business to run. “I never dreamed of being anyone’s boss,” she says. Her fashion education was focused on creative output rather than the logistics of business. Quickly, business imperatives took precedence. “There was actually so little time I was spending doing creative things,” she says.
Closing down and working out what’s next
Ultimately, Røge Hove made the decision to close her brand last October because poor cash flow issues were restricting her design development. A Roege Hove wasn’t turning enough profit to sustain itself. (Røge Hove declined to share annual revenues or profits for her brand.) “It was super limiting because we had the same ambition,” she reflects. “We were in the process of trying to develop yarns, but in the end we just had to perform design wise with almost nothing.”
Røge Hove is a little equivocal about discussing all this. “I don’t think anyone should aim to close their business,” she says. “But I think we should aim to speak a bit more about when things aren’t going well.”
Røge Hove is now taking time to figure out exactly what’s next. “I don’t have all the solutions or the answers right now,” she says. “I’ve learnt a lot, and I need to bring that into the next chapter… I want to spend this year creating without purpose because I do think in the end I just want more time designing and more time to make something that we don’t have to use because we’re under deadline.”
She hints at both a new brand and a second version of the brand. She insists she wants to continue working with knitwear, but is determined to develop a business model and process that is more practical, fulfilling and sustainable to her. Responsible eco-conscious design and a responsible workplace are both of utmost importance, as is a smaller, perhaps more local, set-up that’s more flexible; “where we know from the beginning that it’s not about doing everything people expect,” as she puts it. “It’s about doing what we think makes sense.”
Røge Hove is ready for more collaborations, such as her jewellery line with Denmark’s Georg Jensen, launched last September, which challenged her to push the boundaries of her design philosophy. She’s been busy in the studio and shares pictures of some of what’s in the works. But, she says, the emphasis is “not about producing — it’s about feeling good”.
Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
Copenhagen Fashion Week: Buttoned up and quietened down
