front row at the Henrik Vibskov show 🤭
A review of the most exciting show I saw at Copenhagen Fashion Week, along with detailed analysis of how the presentation ties into to larger upcoming fashion trends.
This is the first of three features on Copenhagen Fashion Week. Today we deep dive on the most exciting show I saw, tomorrow we’ll have an interview with a designer, and Thursday we’ll explore trends in fashion seen in presentations and on-the-ground — and how they tie into larger culture. The Trend Report™ is a reader supported publication, exploring themes in online and offline culture: consider upgrading to a paid subscription to support the writer, Kyle, and to unlock full coverage.
I slipped inside the warehouse before the rain started to pour, as it had been spitting for the past few hours but not actually raining. Outside was a mass of people, all dressed fabulously, some more dramatic than others: a woman wearing a voluminous matching skirt and blazer that had been laser-cut patent pleather that hid a slim bodysuit; two very tall men wearing sweater vests as tops with tweed pants, carrying smart, stylish bags that may have been full of nothing; multiple people with skirts over jeans, all under oversized blazers, reminding of a combination of Designing Women paired with girls I went to college with in mid-aughts Atlanta; so many matching pleat sets, almost all of them black-on-black.
The warehouse was formerly a construction site for tunnels, specifically the tunnel to connect Copenhagen with Malmo. It’s like a barn that had been created in Area X, exaggerated in odd ways, pulled up in height and length, as if The Armory in New York were placed on Ozempic then given a leg extending surgery. At the center of the space was a white carpeted court full of small tripods covered in white handkerchiefs with black words printed on them: “EVERYTHING CRACKS EVENTUALLY.” Four neon-yellow soft sculptures formed a rectangle, each composed of interlocking shapes akin to very long fingers folding together, loose hands resting within each other. Benches were set around the court, invitees asked to take a seat as the space filled to a standing-room-only capacity. Wet Let’s “Chaise Longue” played once, then much louder for a second time, then the music stopped.
A low drone began before revealing its intention and source: music played by a man who slowly stepped forth from a dark hall, wearing black and playing an accordion. He was flanked by seven people wearing all black skirts, cinched blazers, neckerchiefs, with small hats as crowns. The music — played by Anders Singh Vesterdahl — began as a swaying back and forth that hung low but eventually was layered with synths to multiply the sound, making the accordion both a bygone and yet-to-come sound: past, present, future. The group walked in a line, between the rows of handkerchiefs, removing them with each step to reveal glossy eggs. One or two fell off their pedestal, cracking upon impact despite the softness of the carpeted floor. Once all of the eggs were revealed, these figures begin caring for these eggs: some sat and polished, some ducked to dust, some stood and held them — but many shattered, breaking at the softest touch. But isn’t that what eggs are supposed to do? Break?
The presentation formally began: Henrik Vibskov’s Spring 2026 collection. The models were styled with hair combed back-to-front, starting with black and airy garments, some suggesting deconstructed suiting while others exaggerate skirting to tie at the bust and flow to the ground. Black short suits with a white prismatic grids overlaid emerged, appearing more traditional but, upon a turn between rows of eggs, revealed extra sleeves tied behind the back. Another garment of the same fabric appeared to suggest the previous shirt could transform into a sarong. Snowy, pastel coats in tech-friendly materials appear, periwinkles to remind of lightness in the dark. Gleeful multi-colored plaids arrived as shorts. Corroded purple, pink, and green swamplands appeared on silky garments, like wet paintings someone dragged fingers over right before the oils set. White, blue, and green jacquard with details of vegetable stalks and leaves take the form of jackets. Carving appears to be a technique, as light and dark blue materials featured that wear away and reinforce the material, turning lightweight cottons into rigid denims while being neither and both at the same time. There is a feeling of intersecting lines, weaving so at odds and in tension that they appear lenticular, that these prints are shaping and reshaping as they move, less by the form of the clothes themselves but by the patterning that is placed upon their surfaces.
Layering is a crucial part of this vocabulary: pants are placed beneath shorts, dresses are wrapped in unbuttoned and rebuttoned versions of themselves, pleated suits and dresses with painted patterns depicting various colorful vegetables and other root-based comestibles. Impressionist images interpreted through 3D printing but neither, there is a mixology at play: the natural and the unnatural, items being folded and unfolded at the same time, lightweight wears piled upon themselves to be suitable for cooler weather. Everything is deeply practical, everything something one could wear to shield the self but also quite elevated — “fancy” — to a point that they might not make sense every day, less as far as wearability and more because such forms might be difficult for much of the world to understand. Almost everything is worn with shoes that are covered in laces, nets becoming clogs becoming bindles worn over the feet.
It’s unsurprising that a main thesis of the show was the idea of protection (“prot-egg-tion,” as the brand states) and is in part inspired by a performance in New York earlier in the year, it’s not hard to see how the collection is both a byproduct of and an effort to ward off these times. Illustrated carrots are tied together on the back of one coat, a reminder of how so many things are inseparable and that we — although so different, although so far from each other — are bundled together in the same earth that everything sprouts. The clothing that is wrapped upon itself could be seen as a surrogate for these disconnections, embraces that have been withheld, making friends in the imaginary instead of our shared reality. Having to “help yourself” in this way by layering and shielding is deeply impractical and unrealistic, this act of tying and untying just to get by: how did we become so trained to be knotty? And yet: everything cracks eventually. The only way out is through, as so many issues and trends of this moment coalesce into 31 looks that could be seen as benign and perfectly fine with the state of things: business as usual. That, of course, depends on your point of view: these clothes — like so many other clothes — project group working, strength in numbers, a way to consider our problems as to be considered collectively versus individually.
As the show closed and we — who crammed in so close to enter — took the one exit back out into the light rain, there was a brief feeling of having been braided together, interlocked much like the sculptures we were positioned around. But, as the cars pulled out into the street and attendees raced to rent bikes and move to the next show, it was clear how quickly such great ideas fade as we sink into ourselves. Naturally, that’s how we’ve been trained to behave at this point in humanity.
So! It was a great show, yeah? Clearly!
Of all the presentation and shows I saw, this was the one that really stuck with me and got the brain moving as it overlapped between activewear, art-as-fashion in the Issey Miyake sense, and while incorporating new age suiting, all with a dash of political statements that could easily be missed if you were just looking at “pretty clothing.”
Beyond this review, I wanted to dissect what we saw to share a few themes seen in the show that relate to larger observations seen at CPHFW and in the world: here’s how this show fits into “the trends” right now —
