The hardline Danish trend changing the future of fashion

Paris gave us dresses with lion’s heads and luxury labels worth billions of dollars at the haute couture shows, but unassuming Copenhagen has challenged the style capital’s premier position by looking beyond backstage.

Copenhagen Fashion Week has finished its first season where labels such as Ganni and Mark Kenly Domino Tan, a favourite of Crown Princess Mary, had to meet 18 requirements around sustainability and production, or face removal from the program.

“There’s a big picture thing here about responsibility,” says Australian author Clare Press, a member of Copenhagen Fashion Week’s advisory board. “Representation matters; climate action matters. Fashion weeks aren’t just about showing collections to buyers these days.”

“We’ve spent too long considering sustainability as an optional extra.”

With the United Nations reporting that fashion contributes up to 10 per cent of global carbon emissions, the Danish fashion showcase now demands participating labels use 50 per cent certified deadstock, upcycled, recycled, preferred or new-generation materials in their collections.

Commitments to diverse model casting, refusing to destroy unsold stock and runway sets that are zero waste, are minimum requirements for participation.

“Thinking back 10 years, no one really noticed if a fashion week was wasteful and excessive – although I’m sure it was,” Press, founder of The Wardrobe Crisis podcast, says. “Remember the Chanel spaceship? There’s more scrutiny today.”

“I’d love to see Australian fashion events adopt these or similar criteria.”

Copenhagen Fashion Week chief executive Cecilie Thorsmark guided the Danish fashion industry through the changes over three years, with only one label failing to make the cut this season. Kit Willow, the designer of sustainable fashion brand Kit X is ready for Australian labels to start a similar journey towards environmental responsibility.