Late January in Copenhagen sharpens perception. Snow from a recent blizzard still lingers along the streets, and the city carries a quiet sense of anticipation. On the 27th of January, 2026, amid the AW presentations of Copenhagen Fashion Week, that atmosphere extended beyond the landscape – shaping the garments, the venues, and the very act of attending.

It was a day of thought – of reflection and slow movement. With a bike ride around the city with presentations from Stem, SSON, and Han Kjøbenhavn, fashion became a medium to interrogate what it means to act intentionally: how we produce, consume, and choose to move through the systems we participate in.

Copenhagen, in this sense, is not merely a backdrop. It is a laboratory: a city where sustainability is embedded structurally into fashion’s pulse, and where creation and consumption are reframed as questions rather than answers.

To Wool unfolded across the entire presentation space (designed by Andro Yunac), accompanied by a sonic landscape by David Gardener, evoking the rhythm and texture of felting. Woven textile curtains draped the venue, while a collaborative workshop with Hedestrik, a Copenhagen-based community dedicated to working with raw and unspun wool, engaged participants through touch, sound, and smell.

Stem garments are made from recycled natural fibres and produced using a distinctive weaving, cutting and sewing technique. The collection featured twelve looks in neutral tones accented with red: cream skirts, gaiters, and tights; sleeveless vest-and-skirt sets with fluffy hems; and asymmetrically draped pieces in black, grey, and brown. Checks were found in many pieces, and emerged not as ornament, but as structure: a result of material constraints and the logic of the loom itself. Even the models’ faux eyelashes were crafted from recycled fibres, and hair was sectioned in patterns that mirrored the weaving of the clothes.

The presentation – a shared act of making – became a symbolic gesture. In a time where togetherness holds its own quiet power, the workshop felt less performative, and more like an invitation: to create collectively and to experience wool not merely as garment, but as a process, material, and knowledge.

In a fashion culture often obsessed with novelty, To Woolsuggests that the most radical gesture may be patience, observation, and care – an attentiveness to process that refuses to separate thinking from doing.

Beneath the surface – or perhaps more bluntly, right up front – The Fortunate Onesis a provocation, referring to those who have the privilege to consume, discard, and replace – who live within abundance while the material world quietly accumulates our waste. The collection does not provide solutions. Instead, it stays with the unease of normalized excess, forcing reflection on our own complicity.

SSON’s philosophy challenges the illusion of neutrality in fashion. Materials carry history; design is never abstract. In questioning the ethics of production and consumption, the label reframes relevance in fashion: not as constant novelty, but as attentiveness and engagement with what is already present. For a debut, SSON strikes as a brand that does not simply participate in sustainability but interrogates it. The work lingers – and insists that the viewer lingers too.

If we are the fortunate ones, what are we doing with that fortune?

The last show of the evening was the highly-anticipated Han Kjøbenhavn couture presentation. Biking towards the venue felt like the opening scene of a Nordic thriller. The snowy route shifted gradually from colorful facades and brick storefronts to something starker – a grey harbor, skeletal construction sites, long stretches of concrete absorbing the last of the daylight. Only the unbroken line of taxis heading toward the edge of Nordhavn confirmed the direction.

Established in 2008, the brand has long navigated the intersection of streetwear and sculptural tailoring. Here, that tension intensified. Broad shoulders, structural masks and bald heads carved through the dim light, first individually, then almost converging as their presence deepened. Long shapes moved with measured weight, the tailoring architectural – almost brutalist in proportion, like mermaids of the underground. Dark tones dominated – black, charcoal, industrial hues – reinforcing the austerity of the setting.

Yet the garments remained grounded and wearable. In fashion show production, someone always knows someone, and so a passage backstage offered a rare, more intimate view of the collection. Observing the tailoring and details up close, the principles of survival, endurance, and adaptability became clearer. Designed not only for a fantasy – where perhaps Nosferatu’s horror could meet Silent Hill– but for confrontation, they functioned as armor, as presence. Hints of imagination peeked through the silhouettes, lightening the severity and inviting playful recognition – a subtle nod to the uncanny, somewhere between the Nutcracker’srat army and Transformers.

The day underscored that fashion does not always need to chase spectacle to matter. Its radical potential lies in attentiveness: to fibre, to history, to context, to the body moving through space. Fashion becomes a medium for reflection, for ethical reckoning, for shared experience.

 © perediza 2026