Copenhagen is bubbling with fashion

FASHION: Young and enthusiastic fashion designers have made Copenhagen into one of the world’s trendsetting fashion centres. Copenhagen International Fashion Fair has become the place where buyers from around the world are flocking, twice a year

"If you want to break through, make it simple and focus.”

Fashion designer Malene Birger uses the sentence as a graphic expression in the catalogue for her spring-summer collection. But it also expresses her own experience, and by complying with it, she and a handful of other Danish fashion designers have moved up into the international fashion league in recent years. Together with names such as Bruuns Bazaar, Munthe plus Simonsen and DAY Birger et Mikkelsen, BY Malene Birger has helped to make Copenhagen into a fashion centre in line with Paris, Milan and London. Copenhagen International Fashion Fair, which took place in February this year, has grown into the most visited fashion fair in Europe over the last five years, surpassed only by Prêt a Porter in Paris.

“We were a small group who really progressed when we started the alternative fashion fair in Copenhagen,” says Malene Birger. “It took place in parallel with the large, established fair in the Bella Center, but we felt that something more needed to happen. It had to be more wild and we had to be noticed, because we were drowning in all the off-the-peg clothes in the Bella Center. Today the Øksnehallen is the place where all the fascinating stuff takes place, at the same time as it has given a wake-up call to the fair at the Bella Center. And now it is not just those two venues. It has spread to a lot of interesting places in Copenhagen which exude fashion and spirit and inspiration.”

One thing is the fashion fair which reflects the importance of the Danish clothing industry as the country’s 4th largest export business. Another is the emergence of a whole generation of outstanding designers who have given Denmark in general, and Copenhagen in particular, a reputation as one of the most important trendsetting fashion cities in the world.

“Danish fashion design has great usefulness, at the same time as being very personal,” says Malene Birger. “And it is the personal expression that shines through when the most capable Danish fashion designers appear at the international fairs. People simply flock in. Perhaps exactly because we make it simple, yet still focus on the very personal details.”

A Royal Designer

Things are happening fast for Malene Birger, 43. Since she established BY Malene Birger together with her husband Rupert Landendinger two years ago, she has been awarded one prize after another. Most recently she received The Scandinavian Design Prize. She has twice received “The Golden Button” Design Award, and when Denmark’s Crown Princess Mary in December 2004 was portrayed in the Australian Vogue, she mentioned that Malene Birger together with Prada, Celine and Alexander McQueen were among her favourites.

More and more BY Malene Birger is recognised in the international arena of Fashion. Today the company has a strong team of established sales agencies in more than 10 markets, and is also represented through high profile Independents in another 22 countries such as the US, Japan, Kuwait, Australia and South Africa.

Over the last six months, the team in Denmark has doubled the number of staff in order to keep pace with the growth of the business and deliver according to a constantly increasing order book.

Malene Birger characterises her design as “a classical fashion style that expresses, with an edge, sexy sophistication. A timeless look that gracefully binds with the freshness of today. The contrast between feminine vintage treasures and the clean finish from menswear tailoring is the signature of my design, with an invisible thread that combines the pieces.”

“My work is my passion,” she says. “Where I am in life reflects my vision of style and that vision can be seen in everything I touch.”

Malene Birger rounded off her participation in Copenhagen International Fashion Fair with a large closing show where she presented a number of creations from her semi-haute couture range The Salon. The Salon is constantly growing, and BY Malene Birger will launch the collection in selected shops worldwide during autumn 2005. International buyers will be flown to Copenhagen from around the world to have the creations presented in the headquarters of BY Malene Birger in the modern and progressive part of Copenhagen.

 
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