Copenhagen Fashion Week and I shared major firsts as snow blanketed the city in February 2023. I made my debut covering the Danish style capital's runways as an editor for another outlet. Copenhagen Fashion Week, more meaningfully, unveiled its first calendar where organizers required every brand meet minimum sustainability requirements to participate.
Collections from Saks Potts to Stine Goya displayed all the charms of Nordic fashion that have earned fans around the world: statement winter coats, playful hair accessories, functionally fun footwear. But this time, they did so with a vetted commitment to fur- and exotics-free designs and eco-friendly production practices (among other benchmarks). While Copenhagen Fashion Week CEO Cecilie Thorsmark emphasized the minimum standards were just that—a minimum—their presence felt like a revolution for a notoriously fast-churning, and at times wasteful, industry. By the time I wrote my runway report from the plane home, I had one question: "Will the rest of the world catch on?"
