{"id":91002,"date":"2026-05-24T09:30:46","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T09:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/91002\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T09:30:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T09:30:46","slug":"cecilie-thorsmark-copenhagen-fashion-week-ceo-on-20th-anniversary-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/91002\/","title":{"rendered":"Cecilie Thorsmark, Copenhagen Fashion Week CEO, on 20th Anniversary Plans"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Estimated3 min read<\/p>\n

Style Points<\/a> is a column about how fashion intersects with the wider world.<\/p>\n

When you picture Copenhagen style, you might think of a young woman with windblown hair, wearing a colorful puff-sleeved Cecilie Bahnsen dress, eccentrically paired with New Balance or Asics sneakers. Extra points if her bicycle is in tow and she\u2019s pedaling her way to her destination.<\/p>\n

But before that emblematic image entered our heads, careful planning went into putting the city on the sartorial map. When former fashion editor Eva Kruse unveiled the first Copenhagen Fashion Week (CPHFW) in 2006, her goals were to bring together the then-fragmented fashion industry in Denmark and draw attention to Nordic style as a whole. But, explains the event\u2019s current CEO, Cecilie Thorsmark,<\/a> Kruse \u201chad an even bigger vision, which was for Copenhagen to become the fifth fashion capital. At that time, it certainly wasn’t something that people took very seriously, because obviously as a new player, that’s very ambitious.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"StreetChristian Vierig\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Darja Barannik, Tine Andrea, Janka Polliani, and Celine Aargaard outside By Malene Birger during Copenhagen Fashion Week in 2016.<\/p>\n

Twenty years later, Copenhagen Fashion Week is gearing up to celebrate its anniversary, a yearlong celebration that will kick off this week with the January edition of the biannual event. Early on, CPHFW began attracting international press and major editors, showcasing Danish brands like Ganni and Saks Potts that developed a following well outside Scandinavia. Since then, there has been an effort made to showcase global designers (who have included Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Dwyer, Paolina Russo and IAMISIGO.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"DayMatt Jelonek\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

A model walks the runway at The Garment show during Copenhagen Fashion Week spring\/summer 2025.<\/p>\n

For some labels, CPHFW has been a springboard to an even grander stage. \u201cSeeing some of the brands that have decided to go to Paris Fashion Week, like Cecilie Bahnsen and Ganni\u2014even though it’s been so sad to see them go, I think it has reaffirmed that Copenhagen Fashion Week did create a foundation for them to grow and thrive,\u201d Thorsmark says. \u201cNot to take credit for their successes at all, but the fact that they were able to have a long line of successful shows at home, and then go abroad, makes me very proud on their behalf, and also on behalf of Copenhagen Fashion Week. Maybe they’ll come back one day, I hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

Idiosyncratic street style also became a calling card for CPHFW, especially as hyper-polished Instagram images of influencers emerging from Town Cars came to dominate our feeds in the mid-2010s. \u201cI think the reason it feels authentic is that it’s about practicality, which we need in our culture,\u201d says Thorsmark of the city\u2019s prevailing aesthetic, though she notes that the maximalist mood has died down a bit. This time around, she predicts, \u201cyou’ll probably be seeing a lot of long black coats and a lot of layering.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"StreetEdward Berthelot\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Feminine dresses, sneakers, and ever-present bicycles have all been hallmarks of CPHFW street style.<\/p>\n

Thorsmark introduced sustainability requirements for all designers showing on the CPHFW calendar, which \u201cpositioned us as more than just a week of shows, but as a platform for change.\u201d It\u2019s something that has gone on to influence fashion weeks in other cities. \u201cWe need critical mass, and we need more players than just us,\u201d she says. \u201cIt’s been really encouraging to see that other fashion weeks have followed in our footsteps, and they still do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emma Chamberlain,<\/a> Pamela Anderson,<\/a> Paloma Elsesser,<\/a> and Emily Weiss<\/a> are among those who\u2019ve attended or walked in Copenhagen shows in recent years. This week, Ella Emhoff<\/a> and Mara Hoffman are among the international tastemakers making the trip. Thorsmark is planning an anniversary dinner with the goal of \u201cgiving back to our community, to all the designers, creatives, makeup artists, stylists, models, model agencies, production agencies, PR agencies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Come the summer edition in August, you can expect an international guest designer, as well as \u201csome big, established Scandinavian brands joining or returning to the schedule.\u201d They will also publish a commemorative book with archive imagery from the past two decades.<\/p>\n

\"StreetRaimonda Kulikauskiene\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Julia Dalia outside Lovechild1979 during Copenhagen Fashion Week in 2024.<\/p>\n

CPHFW has been a boon for the local economy: according to the organization, fashion is now the country\u2019s third biggest export commodity. And Thorsmark has ambitious plans for the future of the festival. All their success \u201cobliges us to keep pushing and to keep raising the bar even further, both in terms of sustainability and in terms of the conversation around diversity and inclusion. I would love to see more progress in that area as well. And of course, I would also love to see our NewTalent program grow.\u201d For now, though, she\u2019s busy planning the anniversary dinner, and looking forward to \u201cgathering everyone around this moment\u2014because we\u2019ve all been on this journey together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"3 min read Style Points is a column about how fashion intersects with the wider world. When you…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[47927,4990,47926,108,1541,38273,2134,12470,47925],"class_list":["post-91002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-copenhagen","tag-collection-style-points","tag-content-type-feature","tag-contentid-fd4f3fec-56af-4ec7-8533-38ee90f74835","tag-copenhagen","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-issyndicated-false","tag-locale-us","tag-read_time-3","tag-shorttitle-how-copenhagen-fashion-week-won-over-the-world"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116628857537776720","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}