Copenhagen Calls It the Season of Sex, Cowboys and Uniforms

LONDON — It was out with the beige for the most part at the fall 2024 edition of Copenhagen Fashion Week and in with the cool of cowboys, sex and uniforms.

Remain’s new creative director Martin Asbjørn presented his first runway show, which didn’t shy away from cinched waistlines, embroidered sheer fabrics and knee-high boots.

“I still see Remain as a very contemporary brand, but you have got to offer something [new] because the market is so tough right now. For me, I’m talking to a more grown-up audience and talking about sexiness, which is very new for Remain, even using that word. I cannot design anything without having an element of sexiness because I feel like women of all ages can be sexy in different ways,” said the designer in a preview in January.

For Alectra Rothschild of Masculina, the first openly trans designer to show at Copenhagen Fashion Week, sex took a different meaning — it was about liberation and freedom rather than seduction.

Myriad PVC, latex, neoprene and diamanté looks sashayed down the runway featuring cut-outs, trains, chain embellishments and fringes. 

“It’s like I died and woke up on a beach in Ibiza in 1992,” said Rothschild.

Rotate’s cofounders Jeanette Madsen and Thora Valdimarsdottir aren’t just the designers behind their brand, but also the faces of it.

The duo attended their peers’ shows across the city in stylish pieces, walking up and down for the street style photographers.

“We love to embrace the female body and be sexy. When we go out we don’t really think about what the other girls are going to think looks cool. We’re like, ‘what does a man think is sexy?’ We love to dress up for a man,” said Valdimarsdottir backstage, explaining that their collection referenced the ‘50s and Elizabeth Taylor, who was the muse for the eight brides coming down the runway in various wedding-dress styles: long, short, sequined, sheer, corseted and more.

At Baum Und Pferdgarten’s 25th anniversary show, designers Rikke Baumgarten and Helle Hestehave showcased their bestsellers with seductive gestures: a navy waistcoat with knee-high shorts; a long sheer white dress with sequins and white cuffs, and halfway buttoned shirts.

Formal suit shirts became the staple item on the runways as each designer interpreted it in their own distinctive way.

Kristofer Kongshaug of Forza Collective paired a short-sleeve white shirt with a gray necktie and matching skirt; Sigurd Bank of Mfpen showed an easygoing white shirt held together by safety pins, while Stine Goya and her design team flooded the runway at the end in colorful shirts in shades of red, green, orange and blue.

The likes of Saks Potts, Gestuz and Munthe combined three unlikely movements into one: cowboys with a hint of glamour and sleaze.

Cathrine Saks and Barbara Potts focused on Kate Moss’ 2010s outings at the Glastonbury Festival. 

“Particularly in the early 2010s when she made all of her festival appearances wearing short dresses with big, chunky belts and long fringe boots. It was also the time when she designed her collection for Topshop, a period that we both remember as a highlight of our teenage years, as our interest was growing bigger and bigger,” said Potts.

At Munthe, a big rectangular box projected videos of the Wild West, as well as horses galloping in the wild. 

Designer Naja Munthe sent out silver fringed denim skirts and jeans; cowboy hats that borrowed their shapes from bowler hats, and pointy mid-calf cowboy boots.

Henrik Vibskov in his research for his collection based on therapy came across horse therapy, where participants can spend 30 minutes with a horse, cleaning, tending to the animal and petting them.

The designer incorporated the motif of moving horses with two legs knit onto sweaters and scarves.