Copenhagen Fashion Week is trying out a new format this season, adding presentations to the calendar alongside runway shows. Caro Editions was listed as a drop-in event, so it was a surprise when guests, having walked through the brand’s new shop, past a changing room closed off with Josef Frank fabric from Svenskt Tenn, and out the back, found a catwalk instead. Benches had been set up on either side of a row of trees in a brick parking lot and guests including the top Danish models Nadja Bender and Freja Beha Erichsen sat chatting and having drinks. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, and the merry, high summer atmosphere matched that of a collection in which every look was topped off by a Pierrot-ish dome hat with a fold-over brim in a contrasting fabric.
Having modeled for 10 years, Caro Edition’s founder and designer Caroline Bille Brahe said, “I’m just doing it the way that I think a show should be: very Copenhagen style, down to earth, good music.” She also wanted the models to look like they could be wearing their own clothes. In a pre-show interview she explained that the brand had relocated production, upped its quality, and that not all designs would be offered as wholesale; she is bringing things closer to home in several senses.
Bille Brahe once told me that in design she finally found a place where she belonged, so perhaps for this mother of three the label is a bit like another “baby.” Certainly she’s protective of Caro Editions and has strong ideas about what she likes and doesn’t like, but by the sound of it, she’s also hoping to find a new way to exist in fashion.
“I love to make clothes,” she said, “but I actually don’t like to make them the same every time. If I could choose, each piece in the collection would not have the same fabric.” It’s one-off pieces she most enjoys making, and it’s what her customers enjoy buying too. The joy of discovering something special seems to lower price resistance, which is good because the garments in this collection will be more expensive than in the past given that the production has been reorganized, and because Bille Brahe traveled to select quality fabrics.
Many of the silhouettes (strong-shouldered jackets, lady blouses) and embellishments (bows and circus motifs) will be familiar to those familiar with the brand. The idea of a jeweled bathing suit was fun, and the animal prints felt kitschy and ’80s-ish in a fun way. Bille Brahe isn’t reinventing the wheel, but as a woman of enviable style herself, she’s sharing her taste, and doing so in a way that encourages personal style rather than the total look. She thinks of her designs a bit like a jewel, “something very special that I treasure that I never have to sell or wouldn’t want to wear anymore.” Essentially she s translated the thrill of “the find,” she knows so well as a vintage collector, to the idea of collecting special pieces. Hers have a feminine, storybook appeal, but not in the romantic way that, for example Cecilie Bahnsen’s pretty dresses do. Hers is a more decorative approach, and one that is more connected to time (through the vintage references). Bille Brahe’s collections don’t follow a plan, each piece builds or inspires the next. “I’m very impulsive, the lifestyle that we are living is very impulsive,” she explained. Maybe it’s this very free way of working which results in Caro Edition pieces that have charm to spare.
