Forget everything you thought you felt about rats, those scuttling denizens of subways and garbage cans. Not since the appearance of Ratatouille’s Remy has the possibility of these rodents’ reputations being rehabilitated seemed possible—until today when Anne Sofie Madsen and Esben Weile Kjær will loose their disco rodents on the fashion pack. Available in four metallic colors, these meant-to-be-memed clutch bags put Labubus to shame. Here, the two artists discuss their collaboration.
How did you two meet?
Anne Sofie Madsen: We met more than a decade ago in Copenhagen. I had just returned from London, and Esben had just arrived in the city and was finishing his A-levels. Esben and Mø deejayed together at the afterparty for the first show I had in Copenhagen.
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How did you start working together?
ASM: It happened very naturally. We were often in the same spaces—clubs, studios, galleries. We just started playing around with ideas and building things together. Nothing felt formal, it was more like a continuous conversation. I think the first actual project we did was a one-off performance piece at Ovengaden. It was never really documented, but it felt like the beginning of something.
In 2016 we did a photo story for Document Journal. Esben shot it with an old point-and-shoot camera in an atelier that belonged to a friend. It was such a beautiful day—one of those rare moments where everything just clicks. Another was for fall 2017; Esben created the shoes and boots. They were made from papier-mâché using recycled newspapers—luxury pieces with an ephemeral quality, shifting the conversation around value.
Can you tell us more about this spring 2026 collaboration?
ASM: We’ve been collaborating in one way or another on almost all the shows. Esben, who has so many talents, created the soundscapes for all the Paris shows, for example. So for me, this just felt like the best way to return. For this show, Freja Wewer and William Becker from IssueIssue Magazine are doing the art direction—and before we even brought it up ourselves, they suggested it.
Esben Weile Kjær: We’ve worked on so many projects together that when we started talking about this, it came together really quickly.
Esben, the rats are a recurring theme in your work. Why is that?
EWK: I was a punk when I was younger and I remember many of my friends had rats as pets. They would keep them on their shoulders or in the deep pockets of the big old wool military jackets we wore in winter. Rats have always been a symbol of subculture and counterculture for me. I worked with hairless albino rats in 2020 for my exhibition “Power Play” at Gl Strand. One of the posters, shot by Philip Messmann, featured a performer sitting with a rat on their shoulder.
Last year, I created a series of fiberglass sculptures of 10 different rats, covered in glass crystals. They were all the same size as the largest rats found in Copenhagen’s King’s Garden. I wanted to make these Baroque-style rat sculptures. I’m not entirely sure why, but I felt an urgency to do it. I think they were first shown at the Gwangju Biennale in Korea, then in my exhibition “Solar System” at Kunsten. Right now, some of them are on view at Salzburger Kunstverein and Pace in Berlin—so they’ve already traveled quite a bit.
Anne Sofie and I have been friends for a long time. We think in very similar ways. We’re always talking about glam and trash. It’s very exciting to transform the sculptures into this pop city bag.
