Coming to Copenhagen for fashion week always feels a bit like the friendly family meeting at the end of a busy period (aka the buying season). Its late timing, great location, side events and general all-around experience (the shops, the food, the Scandi style!) make it one of the most relaxed checkpoints in the pan-European fashion traveling agenda where everyone, including top buyers from Germany, the UK, and, of course, Scandinavia, seems to come each season with pleasure not only for the main job of buying and scouting, but to exchange and have a good chat and a beer with the industry as well.
That same feeling prevailed this season at the wide and light hallways at the Bella Center. In a slightly reordered layout, CIFF presented a top brand selection, stretching from edgy newcomers and hyped streetwear names (such as 424 and everything in the Slam Jam or Rich & Hanc showrooms) in the Raven and Lab areas to super commercial sportswear and denim brands in the Urban hall (which received a more openly structured lowered-walls makeover) or high-end designers in the Sleek area, where top-class names such as Marni, 3.1 Phillip Lim (Fashionology), JW Anderson, Marc Jacobs, A.P.C. and Rag & Bone (Paris Showroom) were represented by different agencies.
In a new international partnership, CIFF also welcomed a handful of representatives of the Berliner Modesalon (Hien Le, Marjana von Berlepsch, Peter O. Mahler and Sminfinity) in a dedicated booth area on short notice.
Here, a few highlights from CIFF’s s/s ’18 lineup of exhibitors:
Ovadia & Sons
The New York-based creative menswear brand which is stocked at all the big doors across the pond (Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale’s, Saks, Nordstrom, Barneys etc.) celebrated its spontaneous Copenhagen debut at CIFF’s projects area, right behind the main entrance and next to Très Bien and the Beams Japan selection.
Pusher Bags
Decidedly THE bag of choice of the streetwear crowd right now was to be found in a broad range of interpretations, sizes, colors and fabrications.
Le Fix
The brand that is a fixture in Copenhagen because of its famed streetwear store in the inner city center (and its backyard parties there) has been delivering rather “basic” sporty streetwear collections for the past seasons. Now the designer has gone back to his roots (art) and really upped the creative side of the line, perfectly preparing it for a focused international expansion.
Helly Hansen retro feel
Surfing on the ongoing retro sportswear wave, Helly Hansen has introduced a dedicated line to celebrate classics from the 140 year-long history of the sailing brand, such as a blue teddy fleece jacket. The range that was started with fall/winter ’17 also employs a retro HH logo.
Double Rainbouu
Calling itself “Resort wear for beach babes an pool punks,” the colorful range from Australia was started by two Ksubi veterans. Its core piece, the colorfully printed short-sleeved shirt for both sexes, retails for about AU$180 at stores such as Net-a-porter, Browns and Opening Ceremony.
Spoof tees
There’s Nasa shirts at Bibi Chemnitz from Greenland, there’s a take on The Sun’s logo on a Double Rainbow shirt and there will be a whole line of shirts with mock-ups by pop artist Reilly (Instagram @hey_reilly), which were presented at CIFF only as hanging paper drafts–the whimsical spoof tee or playing around with world famous logos in general, remains key.
Labeling system at Hope
Hope, which has been running under the creative direction of Acne-alumni Frida Bard for three seasons now, has introduced a forward-thinking labeling system. Despite being grouped into separate mens- and womenswear lines, the garments each display a men’s and women’s size (with the original one being put first). This way, Canadian super e-tailer Ssense has already incorporated pieces from Hope’s women’s precollection into its menswear offer.
Hysteria by Happy Socks
The Swedish success story Happy Socks has a little sister: Launched with the fall/winter ’17 season, the more female version of the quirky fashion sock is mainly produced in Italy and Portugal and sits at a slightly higher price than its male sibling (€9) at €12-18 retail.
BLS
Started as a caps-only line, this Copenhagen native is now in its fourth season with its sportive men’s clothing line. Tracksuits and caps are (still) its signature pieces and its collaborative team-ups reach from an ongoing one with LA brand Stampd to Danish brewery Faxe.
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For more information on trade shows check out DFV Group’s expocheck.com.
