COPENHAGEN — Braving negative temperatures and snowy streets – last week, designers, fashion veterans and buyers from some of the industry’s largest retailers gathered in the Danish capital for the 20th anniversary of Copenhagen Fashion Week.
Although still much smaller than fashion weeks like Paris and Milan, the event has made its mark on the global fashion map as a showcase for Scandi-cool brands like Holzweiler, Sunflower and The Garment, and just as importantly, for its commitment to sustainability, which chief executive Cecilie Thorsmark made central to the event when she began her tenure in 2018.
In 2020, the fashion week became the first to introduce minimum sustainability requirements for a brand to appear on its official show schedule, spanning from material sourcing to the environmental footprint of runway productions. Since then, it has more than doubled its turnover through commercial partnerships, allowing it to expand its global reach and quadruple its media coverage, according to Thorsmark.
“The building of sustainability requirements didn’t limit Copenhagen … but gave [it] a point of view,” said consultant and industry veteran Julie Gilhart. “The message travels because the issues being addressed are universal.”
Today, however, the event finds itself in a new environment. Sustainability has slipped down fashion’s corporate agenda, while brands are shifting away from overt appeals to sustainability in their messaging as consumers prioritise qualities like design and value. The EU, meanwhile, has watered down its own sustainability regulations as the political climate takes a business-centric turn.
The question now facing Copenhagen Fashion Week is what its role should be in an industry whose sustainability progress feels like it’s stalling — particularly when fashion has often waited for external pressure to force change.
“There’s a careful balance between long-term vision and short-term realities, but when sustainability isn’t being driven by regulation, industry platforms have to step up,” Thorsmark said. “Brands are under constant financial and geopolitical pressure, but doing nothing is no longer an option.”
Not Letting Up
At a time when fashion’s momentum on sustainability feels diminished, the air at this year’s Copenhagen Fashion Week was anything but – instead, spirited and optimistic.
Thorsmark was zealous when speaking about the event’s accomplishments and future trajectory.
“When I joined Copenhagen Fashion Week in 2018, it was becoming clear to me that fashion weeks were falling a bit out of sync with the reality around us, so I had a conviction that it should be possible to challenge the status quo of a fashion week, to transition it from being merely a showcase into a platform with a deeper purpose,” she said.
CPHFW believes sticking to its mission more fervently is what will drive change in the face of shifting political winds. In practice, this has meant continuing to raise the bar on its sustainability requirements, even as brands face mounting financial pressure, while using its growing visibility to push accountability from within the industry itself.
This year, for instance, the event’s criteria for brands to show were the strictest to date, with the organisation also doubling down on its due diligence. Some of the new additions included requiring a formally approved sustainability strategy, concrete guidelines for equality and diversity in hiring and a code of conduct for working conditions. (Over the years, the event has declined about six brands from showing due to not meeting its minimum criteria.)
“The standards at Copenhagen Fashion Week are really high. They come backstage ahead of shows to check we are adhering to the requirements,” said Lucile Guilamard, co-creative director at London-based brand Paolina Russo. “They give us feedback to improve and vice versa.”
One key area many brands find difficult due to costs is changing their material makeup, such as moving away from using a large percentage of polyester. CPHFW has taken a collaborative approach to this, helping brands address areas where they fall short of its sustainability standards by working closely and meeting with them throughout the year and in between fashion weeks for advisory sessions, as well as connecting them with consultants who can offer guidance. It also nurtures new talent through mentorship and financial support at a time when the industry’s infrastructure for helping emerging designers to succeed has been limited.
“In Copenhagen there is this excitement to collaborate, a real willingness here to embrace challenges together instead of working in isolation, which is what matters most right now,” said Cecilie Bahnsen, creative director of her eponymous label — one of the early Nordic brands to to show at CPHFW, though it now shows in Paris. “That community spirit is electric, and I think that’s what helps Copenhagen to raise the level and push the envelope of what a fashion week can do in terms of uplifting talent and raising the bar for sustainability.”
In this vein, Thorsmark said the preference is not to exclude brands when possible.
“We’d much rather bring everyone up to the same level,” she said. “Otherwise, we won’t have a real impact.”
Collective Action
CPHFW is betting on partnering with more of its counterparts so that more fashion weeks embed responsibility into their structures rather than treating it as seasonal messaging, collectively pushing the industry to improve.
In the last two years, CPHFW has partnered with fashion weeks in Berlin, Oslo, Amsterdam and the British Fashion Council, which oversees London Fashion Week — all of which are in the process of adopting Copenhagen’s sustainability requirements. Going forward, it is looking to create a similar partnership with the CFDA, organiser of New York Fashion Week, hopefully followed by Paris and Milan.
Thorsmark said along with their focus on environmental sustainability, the partnerships also encompass areas such as diversity and inclusion and talent development.
“The goal is to really embed these key structures into fashion weeks, which is what would actually allow for systemic change, and push the industry forward,“ she said.
In a global moment fraught with political and economic volatility, Copenhagen Fashion Week is leaning further into sustainability as the foundation of its future instead of pulling back. It’s hoping to show that industry platforms can be drivers of progress from the inside out.
“Whenever there’s uncertainty in the world, sustainability conversations tend to go flat,” said Gilhart. “Survival mode takes over…. but that’s why models like Copenhagen’s matter — they’re building something new, not trying to sustain an old system.”