Dear Diane and Shaded Viewers,
Priority number one for my final day in Copenhagen was to view the Designer's Nest competition. The competition showcases student collections from 10 Scandinavian fashion academies (spanning Iceland to Finland) – considering I was on the jury last season, I have a vested interest.
For this season, the organizers enlisting my fellow judge from the H&M Design Award, Hilary Alexander and my Talents Editor at Vogue Italia, Sara Maino along with designer Peter Jensen.
Together they chose three designers out of 28 entries, the two runners up were both from the Aalto University of Art and Design; Timo Helin and Patrik Prusak and the Grand Prize winner (who won 50,000 DKK to further promote their design career) was Louise Sigvardt from Designskolen Kolding.
Note a few of my personal highlights from the show:
After Designers Nest, I took in more regional talents – first Samuji – who describes themselves as a creative studio based in Helsinki. Showing at the Music Hall, the studio offered clean and basic silhouettes.
Next was Danish designer Gaia Brandt, who showed in the church-turn-contemporary art center Nikolaj. The designer who studied at Central St. Martins clearly has a pension for color, mixing different families of colors together and oscillates between vintage garments and knitwear – each piece is handmade.
Finally, was hometown hero Silas Asdler, 26, who is the designer behind Soulland. What the show was lacking in progressive menswear certainly made up for in energy! There must more than 200 people waiting outside in the negative degree weather to get a glimpse of the models nearly running down the catwalk.
For full show reviews check out my column on Vogue.IT
-Kristopher Arden-Houser
