Copenhagen Fashion Week: 3 Emerging Designers to Watch

As well as cementing itself as the fashion centre for sustainability, Copenhagen Fashion Week is becoming a hotbed for new talent and this spring/summer 2022 season saw three designers impress - upcycling Danish brand (Di)vision, conceptual knitwear label A. Roege Hove and Louise Lyngh Bjerregaard, a Central Saint Martins graduate who places a strong emphasis on craftsmanship and sustainability.

(Di)vision unveils SS22 collection made with deadstock and vintage clothing

Sustainable Danish fashion brand (Di)vision founded by sibling duo Nanna and Simon Wick, showcased an entire collection for spring/summer 2022 made deadstock fabric and upcycling of vintage clothing, including the classic workwear jacket.

The collection was inspired by the past year, explains (Di)vision in the show notes, where the everyday uniform has been replaced by jogging and loungewear and where comfort has become a priority for many.

“The collection mirrors both the past year, but it also embraces the time to come, where there’s - hopefully - room for more kisses, hugs, colours and patterns,” said Nanna and Simon Wick.

This was showcased with a playful and inclusive catwalk show on the rooftop level of a car park in Copenhagen, where (Di)vision presented its unisex range of upcycled loungewear and workwear styles featuring floral prints, patchwork, deconstructed and cut-out detailing.

The collection includes everything from large jackets to tops, sweatshirts, shirts, parachute-style trousers, jeans, and dresses, described by the brand as “everyday” styles, alongside accessories.

Highlights included a floral maxi coat with the brand’s signature zipper, allowing the maxi to become a cropped jacket, and the brand’s signature split bomber jacket in a blue and white botanical print, which has a zipper down the back.

A. Roege Hove makes impressive Copenhagen Fashion Week debut

Each season, Copenhagen Fashion Week places the spotlight on an emerging designer with its ‘Talent Slot’ and for spring/summer 2022 that honour went to textile designer Amalie Røge Hove and her conceptual knitwear label A. Roege Hove.

Hove studied textile design at the Royal Danish Academy of fine arts, before working in knitwear at some of the top Danish brands, including Cecilie Bahnsen and Mark Tan, and launched her label to challenge knitwear traditions with a modern and artistic approach to original craftsmanship. The brand also aims to change the perception of shape with sculptural and unique knit pieces designed around the body.

“Every knitted style is created through the vision of bringing life to the material. Different dimensions are created by the bodies that wear them. Like sculptures, they showcase different stories for every style, and as the pieces frame the body the real shape is brought to life by its owner,” explains Hove on the brands website.

This collection marks the designer’s fifth collection and highlights her love of body-con silhouettes, statement cutout detailing and transparent stripes. The colour palette is minimalist and neutral, allowing for the knitwear techniques to shine through, mainly black and white, however, Hove does add in a few pops of bright colour with neon pink and lime greens to add contrast.

Sustainability is also at the forefront of this emerging brand, with each piece produced in Europe, in Denmark, Ireland and Italy, and most made to order so that the brand doesn’t have a large stock of unused pieces.

“We believe that the fashion of tomorrow needs to focus on their strengths and therefore we create two collections yearly and they only cover the categories we truly believe in and the material allow us to create,” adds Hove. “Its all about creating everlasting pieces and stables to have in your wardrobe for a long time – the versatility in the styles and opportunity to use above, underneath or alone creates different looks within each style and we love to see our customers create individual looks with our designs.”

Louise Lyngh Bjerregaard debuts autumn/winter 2021 collection

Paris-based, emerging Danish designer Louise Lyngh Bjerregaard is looking to blur the boundaries between ready-to-wear and couture with a debut autumn/winter 2021 collection uniting art, fashion, and subversion.

A graduate of Central Saint Martins and the Scandinavian Academy of fashion design, Bjerregaard worked at Eckhaus Latta and Anne Sofie Madsen before launching her namesake label in 2019, placing knitwear at the core, alongside sustainability by using deadstock fabrics for her clothing and practising a zero-waste policy.

In 2020, Bjerregaard received the Danish Art Foundation’s two-year working grant as a part of the programme ‘The Young Artistic Elite’ and in 2021, the atelier was nominated as a finalist at the 2021 Zalando Sustainability Award but withdrew from the prize due to Covid-19.

Bjerregaard explores artisanal savoir-faire techniques such as deconstruction, draping, trompe l’oeil, upcycling, fabric manipulations, and tailoring across her womenswear staples. All the pieces, as well as some of the fabrics, were made by hand in the designer’s atelier.

Highlights include matching intarsia knit sets, tailored corsets worn backwards, leather patchwork dresses and skirts, and intricate, delicate knitted dresses with statement cutout detailing.

“The autumn/winter 21/22 debut-collection is an intriguing hybrid of dark romanticism spanning decades,” explains Bjerregaard in the show notes. “Constantly and playfully crossing lines between ready-to-wear and couture the collection has been build on explorations of my mind and this translates poetically throughout the universe of each garment.”

The collection was initially presented with an intimate salon-style show during Paris Couture Week in July and then reworked into a digital presentation for Copenhagen Fashion Week with a screening at the Charlottenborg Art Cinema.