Inside Copenhagen Fashion Week: Sustainability is a Non-Bargain
by Laila Musleh
The mecca of street style has once again debuted its biannual fashion week. Copenhagen Fashion Week featured Spring/ Summer 2025 collections from renowned and emerging fashion houses. What truly sets this week apart from the rest? The Danish capital’s unwavering commitment to sustainability. A showcase and a movement towards a more conscious future.
Throughout the five days, Copenhagen buzzed with runways, industry conversations and community celebrations. The schedule was packed with talents and innovations from OperaSport, whose Spring collection showcased over 80 looks, inspired by Copenhagen Exillion Garden, blending elements of the Italian renaissance and the French Baroque with recycled and organic fabrics, to Rotate, closing the week with a collection alluding to the 1920’s through a whimsical color palette of yellows, pinks and blues, maintaining whimsy and romance on the runway.
Skall Studio’s spring show fused vacation with business, presenting a juxtaposition of ease and sharpness. Crafted with 95% mono fibers, the color palette featured white, beige and black tailored pieces that provided a boho essence with lace and embroidered elements.Tailored vests, skirts, corsages and even denim were central to this season’s collection.
A regular at Copenhagen fashion week, Stine Goya brought on micro-pleated sets, brown leather jacket cinched at the waist, with sharp shoulder lines, a blue suit adorned with black bows, below-the-knee olive jacket with distinct collars, and the crowd-pleaser: knitted sweater-vests. This collection felt like several mini collections woven into one, all centered around personalization and versatility.
Inspired by the Olympics, Baum und Pferdgarten infused athleticism into their designs. Models strutted down a blue running track in sharp white shirts and pleated skirts with soccer-ball bags hung over their shoulders – establishing a duality of athleticism and office attire.
Alongside these favorites, this week brought on new exciting talents continuing the mission of sustainable and ethical practices, enhancing the Scandinavian scene with a slower and more thoughtful approach to fashion.
Bonnetje, founded by Anna Myntakae and Yoko Maja Hansen, aims to fill a gap in Scandinavian fashion with conceptual garments with irregular proportions, asymmetries and subversions. They use men’s suits for material, pulling lapels and waistbands to reproduce designs that standout within the Danish fashion scene. Stem, founded by Sarah Brunnhuber, prioritizes a zero-waste philosophy, relying exclusively on Brunnhuber’s talents in weaving, cutting and sewing to eliminate garment production waste – no fabric is produced until designs are finalized. Similarly, Sol Hansdottir focuses on zero waste by sourcing materials from deadstock and London’s Wood Green.
Copenhagen Fashion Week celebrates art, innovation and the cultural pulse of Cophehagen. Designers, old and new, prioritize sustainable efforts, pushing boundaries and filling gaps in their domestic and global fashion scene.