As the world wakes up to Scandi style, the next generation seem to be questioning just what that is. “There’s been this idea about Scandinavian fashion being one particular way or following a very particular uniform pattern of visual identity, and I think a lot of these students rail against that a little bit. They don’t want to be put into a box,” Royal Danish Academy dean Marcus Aminaka Wilmont said about the graduating MA class. “They want to help define how different fashion can look in a Nordic country, [and show] that it’s not the traditional minimalist perfection, but that there are many points of view.” This likely relates to a generational shift and the changing demographics of the region. What’s especially interesting is that the dean notes that many of the students seem to have found themselves in the immediate world around them (so Copenhagen, and other parts of Denmark or the countries they are from.) Personal, it seems, is aligned with local.
The student show was presented in a huge gymnasium space and was beautifully choreographed so that you could really take in the clothes. Multitasking, and the impossibility thereof, was the theme of Kristen Sihus’s collection, which kicked things off. With so much to do, it’s no wonder that tempers might rise; with dramatic, architectural shapes Edith Wallin considered female anger. It’s often women who often have to juggle childcare and work, and feminism and women’s choices was the theme of several collections, including that of Juliane Rignel Jørgensen, Karen Müller, and Yijing Wang, from China, who drew not only on traditional Chinese dress but Nüshu, “the only writing system in the world created and used exclusively by ancient Chinese women.”
Childhood as an escape was considered in Frederik Daugberg’s collection, Playground Love, for which he explored combined the study of Danish youth culture and a more specific source, his teenage brothers. Fairy tales were the starting point for Asger Beyer’s tulle confections. Less innocent was the work of Victor Kring who wittily titled his offering Scandalnavia.
Materiality drove the work of Nina Valentine, whose incredible handmade textiles, a delight to the eyes, were put to use in a body of work about grief and mourning. Also technically outstanding was Trine Nielsen’s collection of airweight dresses made by translating paper folding for fashion design. Katherine Kirk adapted the two-dimensionality of packaging into angular 3D garments in which the body can be boxed. The hard/soft dichotomy animated Sarah Blicher Bek’s graduate work.
Sustainability is woven into the format at Copenhagen Fashion Week and in Johanna Inger Kristensen’s beautiful collection, called Walking With Memories, the unfolding of stories found a parallel in her pieces which opened up and recombined materials found locally. The most political of the student collections was Lovebomb by Mai Sakamoto who took apart deadstock military wear and combined them with vivid prints to ensure the delivery of her message of peace and love.
