Concurrent with Henrik Vibskov’s 25th anniversary, Copenhagen Fashion Week is marking its 20th. This isn’t exactly by chance; when the 2001 Central Saint Martin’s graduate moved home he started stirring things up and creating a new kind of fashion culture in the city. Vibskov’s clothes didn’t look like what was available at the time, and his approach to design was—and is—cross media. He carved a path that others could follow.
His fall 2026 show was as theatrical as ever, presented in the round at the Østre Gasværk Theater. Models walked a ring around a troop of people with ladders strapped on their backs; to some of these ladders packages (i.e. weight) were added or taken away during the show. Danish actress Linnea Berthelsen, a Stranger Things cast member, opened in an amphibian-patterned sweater worn over a white shirt and with a spunky hat. Jacquard wovens in mossy patterns and others inspired by mycelium intermingled with more traditional menswear fabrics (checks and plaids) and pieces. In addition to the season’s requisite duffle coat, Vibskov showed a cape-shouldered rain poncho with matching hat. As always, it was the custom designed materials that were a point of difference.
The starting point for this spectacle, titled Frog Carry Frog, was the designer’s sighting of a fire-belly frog on a Danish island. Vibskov’s thought process seems to operate along the lines of a ripple effect: From frogs he hopped to the idea, as the notes read, of “shared weight: emotional baggage, collective labor, and the unseen systems that sustain life.” This at a time when so many systems are being destabilized. The connection to current events wasn’t intentional, but became increasingly evident as show time approached. “It’s meant to be a positive thing,” said the designer on a call, noting, as an aside, that frogs are “always described in fairy tales either in the ugly way or in the beautiful—you give it a kiss and it becomes a prince; so it’s either or.”
There’s no doubt about Vibskov’s bonafides, however. Last year he was awarded a lifelong honorary award from Statens Kunstfond (the Danish National Art Fund), making him a sort of prince of creativity.
