The Ed is on his way over the sound to spend two days at Copenhagen Fashion Week to see what the Swedes are up to there. Is it really true that Copenhagen is beating the crap out of Stockholm? Read about his reflections here…

Too early…
5am is just too early to get up, especially if you have just managed to get four hours of sleep. I do love to go by train though and after a refreshing walk to the central station I was in my seat with slightly more than five hours to spend before arriving in Copenhagen where the lovely Keri Ingvarsson from Sthlm Fashion Week by Berns will pick me up.

One might not think that it is very fashionable to be on a train but apart from e-mailing and reading on some fashion website and blogs I also take my time to look out the window and look at the landscape. After all – this is one of the basic sources for inspiration for our designers and a main reason to why they differ from designers from other parts of the world. Fashion is so much more than you think of when running around in shops or sitting by the catwalk!

It´s like a sauna
Now I have done quite a bit of running around. After a slow start with two pretty tired fashionistas we got started for real with the normal fashion week stress. An advantage here is that I do not have to go to a lot of show because I need to cover them but I can take it pretty easy and just enjoy.

First of all we went to Forum where one of the large trade shows is located. There – in almost tropical heat – one will find around 40 Swedish exhibitioner. It does show that Swedish fashion has quite a variety and that we are starting to get there.

Marimekko showed their spring/summer collection in a tent right outside the fairs and it was a pretty commercial event though I liked the odd piece and all the colour. For some bizarre reason the explosion of pattern and colours suddenly changed into an odyssey of black and white which gave a pretty weird finish to this other so colourful show.

After the show it was time to float around at the trade show, talk to people, and look at clothes and all that stuff you do in these events. I cannot say anything else that I am ever so pleased not to be an exhibitioner having to stand in this heat for ten hours each day…

The sauna was then changed into a nice walk into central Copenhagen where we got some food and then sat down at Radhuspladsen where there is a gigantic screen that shows all the runway shows. It is such a nice way to be able to see all the shows instead of having to run between them since they are all spread out around the city. Unfortunately I missed to see the runway show of the week (Noir) since that was on Wednesday but I did get to see it on the screen and it looked absolutely amazing and I am every so sorry I missed to see it live.

After this it was time for Munthe plus Simonsen which took place in City Hall (Radhuset). The tropical heat was present here as well and I almost killed myself before the show started. The show started off in a good way with some harem inspired Scandinavian romantic style but then fell flat to the ground and became every so commercial. I cannot really say what it was but I was not the only one having the same feeling.

Now it was definitely time to go to the hotel and get some rest and a good shower before the evening´s party.

Swedes everywhere
A couple of hours of rest later and it was time to go to the party organized by JLindeberg. In a cool venue on the outskirts of central Copenhagen they had a really cool and chilled party where Swedes made up about half of the guests.

It is something you really think about when visiting Copenhagen Fashion Week – there are Swedes everywhere. One wonders what would happen to this week if they actually decided to leave Copenhagen and move to Stockholm instead…

Back to the party – well – what does one really write about a party. They are really only fun if you are there in person. It was really good though; a lot of cool people that drank lots of alcohol and had tons of fun. Since I forgot my camera, but Oscar from JLindeberg sure had his I hope that he keeps his promise so I can present some pictures from the occasion.

After a brief visit to Hotel St Petri where we had a few more drinks it was sure time to get back to the hotel for a couple of hours of sleep.