Copenhagen Fashion Week Kicks Off the Spring 2024 Season With 6 Major Trends

There are a few reasons Copenhagen has the singular opportunity to set the stage for an entire season, but an important one is that its fashion week is scheduled nearly a month ahead of New York's and the rest of the traditional circuit. The top trends we see on its runways might then crop up in other fashion capitals — especially if there's a lot of real-time hype.

In just a few short years, Copenhagen Fashion Week has grown from a humble showing of emerging designers looking to put themselves on the map to a bona fide global powerhouse shaping what we're all going to be wearing in six months. Its NEWTALENT initiative has become a promising springboard for brands like Nicklas Skovgaard, P.L.N. and Rolf Ekroth, while Nordic labels like Ganni, Opera Sport, Baum und Pferdgarten, A. Roege Hove and many others have made names for themselves as part of the lineup.

The growth of the week at large has also meant that these labels may try to appeal to a wider audience, but the best shows are the ones where designers not only adhere to their creative senses, but also introduce new and unexpected ways of styling. So, expect to see doily-lace dresses (The Garment, Baum und Pferdgarten), a new skirt length (Skall, Opera Sport, A Roege Hove, Remain) and hot pants — or no pants at all, as seen at Opera Sport and Saks Potts — crop up on both sides of the Atlantic in the coming weeks.

Read about those and the other top trends from Copenhagen Fashion Week's Spring 2024 runway shows, below.

Hot Pants

Hot pants (or no pants) is CPH's preeminent styling choice. At Saks Potts, that meant ribbed briefs paired with a faux-leather bomber and heels, and at A. Roege Hove — which won the Karl Lagerfeld Prize for Innovation earlier this year — it meant letting underthings shine from beneath Circulose dresses and skirts. Ganni, meanwhile, has a sweet floral shirtdress unbuttoned to show off a pair of black briefs.

View the 14 images of this gallery on the original article

Sheer Confidence

Nicklas Skovgaard started the week off with a one-woman play in lieu of a runway show, during which the singular model began by stripping nude, before changing into a tasseled dress that was mostly sheer from the waist-down. That set the tone for a very sheer-forward season: The trend also popped up at The Garment, Skall Studio and Remain, among others.

View the 16 images of this gallery on the original article

Awkward Lengths

We've seen low-slung maxi skirts, micro minis — but now, designers in Copenhagen are going for lengths that are a little more… unusual. At A. Roege Hove, sheer ribbed shorts that hit just above the knee give way to skirts with a similarly awkward, in-between hemline. Ganni, Skall and The Garment offered spring-ready midis made to hit at the quadricep.

View the 23 images of this gallery on the original article

Vintage-Inspired Lace

Reminiscent of a '50s-era doily or a tear from your mother's wedding gown, vintage lace is a frequent reference for Spring 2024 — a big tonal shift, after seasons of thick brogues, padded blazers and cargo everything. At The Garment, it appears everywhere from a flowing midi dress with an asymmetric hem, laying as uneven as a ruffled tablecloth, and in a dual-layered crop top, as well as a low-slung skirt. At Kerne.Milk, there's a micro-mini skirt in a more floral-heavy lace, while Ganni gives a knit midi skirt the same lace hem you'd expect to see on a bed skirt. (But, trust: It's chic.)

View the 9 images of this gallery on the original article

Flats

Flat shoes of all kinds ruled the CPH Spring 2024 runways. We're talking ballet flats (The Garment), espadrilles (Skall Studio), bright sneakers (Ganni, Stamm) — plus ballet flats again, only with hosiery that hit at the calf (Baum und Pferdgarten). The message is clear: Get your last licks of your high heels and chunky clogs, because they'll be gone by spring.

View the 22 images of this gallery on the original article

Dress Over Pants

Paolina Russo and Mark Kenly Domino Tan bring the classic dress-over-pants look back to the runway for Spring 2024. But others, like Gestuz — which proposes a buttoned denim waistcoat over a pair of baggy jeans that gives the illusion of that styling — take the idea less literally. The key seems to be in finding similar fabrics, like denim or crepe (or mismatching them altogether), for a look that's both daring and refined.

View the 10 images of this gallery on the original article

Want the latest fashion industry news first? Sign up for our daily newsletter.