The 5 Scandinavian Fashion Brands to Watch in 2022

Words Sophie Axon

From Gan­ni, Acne Stu­dios and Tôteme, Scan­di­navia is fast becom­ing a podi­um for ate­lier delights. Many of these Nordic labels roll off of our tongues and seem­ing­ly for good rea­son. It’s a fash­ion that extends beyond the run­way, edi­to­r­i­al and book­shelf; it has enveloped us all.

When we speak of Scan­di­na­vian style, it’s evi­dent that there’s some­thing worth emu­lat­ing; the non­cha­lant lay­er­ing and min­i­mal­ist sil­hou­ettes are “uncom­pli­cat­ed and easy to wear”, as Chris­t­ian Exs­teen, ex-Cre­ative Direc­tor of By Malene Birg­er, once told VOGUE. While this remains true, the past few years have also seen a slight redi­rec­tion: an increase in poignant colour and tex­ture com­bi­na­tions, a healthy touch of satirism and alter­na­tive meth­ods of pro­duc­tion. Some design­ers have achieved a more sus­tain­able pro­duc­tion by slow­ing down and oper­at­ing on a made-to-order basis. Their sus­tain­able prac­tices also include using waste prod­ucts such as old cof­fee grounds to cre­ate nat­ur­al, chem­i­cal-free dyes or opt­ing for recy­cled dead­stock fab­rics.

When events such as Mag­a­sin du Nord Fash­ion Prize and Copen­hagen Fash­ion Week (CPHFW) arrive in the cap­i­tal, we are treat­ed to an abun­dant pre­sen­ta­tion of ready-to-wear new­ness and once again we expe­ri­ence the rush of scan­di­ma­nia. The new designs we see might be pre­sent­ed as sea­son­al, but since Cecilie Thorsmark’s appoint­ment as CEO of CPHFW, all par­tic­i­pat­ing design­ers must now adhere to strict sus­tain­abil­i­ty require­ments. Although these rules will ful­ly come into place next year, it rep­re­sents a change in the indus­try — show­ing that cre­ativ­i­ty can and will coex­ist with respon­si­bil­i­ty. This is some­thing to be cel­e­brat­ed; where there is new­ness, there is often sub­stance and inno­va­tion. On that note, here are 5 Scan­di­na­vian brands to watch in 2022.

A. Rogue Hove

A. Roege Hove is an epony­mous brand spe­cial­is­ing in con­cep­tu­al knitwear for women. Mould­ing to the nat­ur­al shape of the body, each gar­ment is con­struct­ed using an array of fine, shad­ow-like thread. The del­i­ca­cy and semi-trans­paren­cy of the knitwear resem­bles skin, breath­ing a sense of life to the gar­ment. In doing so, A. Roege Hove cel­e­brates the beau­ty of crafts­man­ship through her designs.

Found­ed by Amalie Røge Hove in 2019, the brand rede­fines tra­di­tion­al knitwear by exper­i­ment­ing with new tex­tures and shapes; seem­ing­ly find­ing an equi­lib­ri­um between the sim­ple and the extrav­a­gant.

Each piece is pro­duced in Amalie’s home coun­try of Den­mark, or Ire­land and Italy to ensure con­sis­ten­cy in qual­i­ty and ethics. Amalie pro­duces every sam­ple piece on a domes­tic knit­ting machine in Copen­hagen, and then, when the designs are brought to pro­duc­tion, the process is always engi­neered to erad­i­cate (or at the very least min­imise) waste. A. Roege Hove was crowned the win­ner of the Mag­a­sin du Nord Fash­ion Prize in 2021, under the men­tor­ship of Silas Adler, Cre­ative Direc­tor of Soul­land.

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(di)vision

(di)vision was cre­at­ed through the dic­tum “two become one”. By mar­ry­ing togeth­er dead­stock mate­ri­als to cre­ate uni­fied gar­ments, (di)vision nods not only to sus­tain­abil­i­ty but the rela­tion­ship between his­to­ry, nos­tal­gia and the lives behind our clothes. Found­ed by sib­lings Nan­na and Simon Wick in 2018, each piece is designed to be flu­id, hybri­dis­ing tra­di­tion­al sil­hou­ettes and gen­dered ideals of dress­ing. By tak­ing old fab­rics and cre­at­ing some­thing new, there’s a delib­er­ate con­cep­tu­al, mul­ti­func­tion­al DIY-aes­thet­ic to the clothes

(di)vision was hand­picked as one of four final­ists in 2021’s Mag­a­sin du Nord Fash­ion Prize, under the men­tor­ship of GANNI’s Nico­laj Reffstrup.

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Jade Cropper

Jade Crop­per is a Stock­holm-based epony­mous label that chal­lenges the tra­di­tion­al func­tion and pur­pose of women’s clothes. Through abstract detail­ing, uncon­ven­tion­al lin­ear­i­ty, and by blend­ing cou­ture with the rhythm of street style, Jade Crop­per designs with the inten­tion to lib­er­ate women. Each style merges the con­ven­tion­al with the uncon­ven­tion­al. In doing so, Jade Crop­per breathes pos­i­tive con­no­ta­tion into the con­cept of imper­fec­tion and decon­struc­tion, through a cel­e­bra­tion of design.

Since the estab­lish­ment of the brand in 2020, Jade Crop­per has been on a mis­sion to steer away from fast fash­ion, ensur­ing her designs are inclu­sive and sus­tain­able by using upcy­cled and recy­cled fab­rics. After being award­ed the inau­gur­al Tal­ent Slot by the CPHFW show com­mit­tee, Jade Crop­per show­cased her AW22 col­lec­tion in Feb­ru­ary and received an abun­dance of glow­ing reports.

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Kerne.milk

Kerne.milk’s clothes are made to be sipped and soaked-up through the nat­ur­al shapes of the body. Based in Copen­hagen, Kerne.milk cre­ates wom­enswear gar­ments that nod to both vin­tage and the future. As a brand they are pas­sion­ate­ly ded­i­cat­ed to con­tribut­ing to a more sus­tain­able future, oper­at­ing on an upcy­cling basis by sourc­ing dead­stock and repur­pos­ing mate­r­i­al.

Found­ed in 2019, Cre­ative direc­tors, Marie Mark and Kat­ri­na Wit­tig, draw inspi­ra­tion from their past expe­ri­ences as dancers. In doing so, Kerne.milk’s clothes play on the con­cept of eccen­tric move­ment, the per­for­ma­tive nature of cloth­ing and the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of dressing.

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Marimekko

Marimekko was found­ed in Fin­land back in 1951 and steadi­ly grew as a house-hold name in the fash­ion indus­try. But it wasn’t until 2020 that the younger gen­er­a­tion start­ed to take notice, after Rebek­ka Bay (pre­vi­ous Cre­ative Direc­tor of COS) was appoint­ed as Cre­ative Direc­tor.

Each gar­ment is infused with a youth­ful ener­gy not only through the upcy­cling of old fab­rics but through the con­tin­u­ous use of archived Marimekko prints. Today in 2022, Marimekko show­cas­es a gen­uine desire to encour­age cre­ative expres­sion and func­tion­al­i­ty 0 through atmos­pher­ic colour­ways, print­ed fab­rics, and mod­ern sil­hou­ettes.

By reimag­in­ing past designs and dig­ging into their vast archive of abstract prints, Marimekko has become a brand that not only dress­es the con­sumer, but a brand that cel­e­brates the non-lin­ear­i­ty of fash­ion; his­tor­i­cal­ly and today.

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