There’s no designer in Copenhagen better suited to encourage a “both sides now” view of what has been a gray and rainy CPHFW than Emilie Helmstedt, who creates artful escapist fantasies season after season. For spring 2024, she invited guests to walk inside a cloud. Hand-painted cardboard puffs hung below a ceiling covered with a draped white tarp while a smoke machine did its thing.
The opening look, worn by local model Nina Marker, introduced Helmstedt’s main theme as well as her collaboration with New York-based accessory designer Susan Alexander, in the form of a cloud bra with fringes of rain (there was also a hair ornament and a bag along these lines). This was paired with cloud-print pants that evoked a blue-sky feeling.
Early on this brand sometimes felt more like an art project than a full-on fashion business, but lately it has grown by leaps and bounds. The styles are more sophisticated and the sometimes over-busy prints have been put aside in favor of simpler, but no less enticing patterns. The variety of embellishments has increased, as well.
At a preview, Helmstedt said she’s more business focused now and as she’s recently entered new markets she took the decision to revisit and revise pieces from her archive. Though commercially motivated, this decision made thematic sense. Clouds often get a bad rap, but we shouldn’t forget that they can seem to take on any number of magical forms; that they’re necessary for life. By including a darker-hued print from last season, the designer created a thematic dichotomy between earth and sky. Maybe this also functioned as a reminder for Helmstedt to keep her feet on the ground while her head is in the sky.
The range of products in the spring collection was more varied than usual, and the designer convincingly demonstrated that a hoodie with the Helmstedt treatment is as enticing as a more elaborate, and expensive, quilted and bow-tied jacket or vest. And how much fun would it be to customize your jeans with bee or cloud charms? It was great to see some sportier pieces, with fun details, like a pocket at the center back. More chic, yet still playful, were a blue coat embroidered with a Milky Way’s worth of miniature stars, a strawberry slip dress, and a romantic boho dress, khaki with just the right amount of embroidery. Any of them would be sure to please the inner child of a fashionable woman.
