Copenhagen Fashion Week SS27: 10 Brands Making Responsible Fashion Fun Again

From zero-waste pleats and repaired T-shirts to dystopian beachwear, our Copenhagen favorites traded beige virtue-signaling for actual ideas.

Nicklas Skovgaard, photo James Cochrane courtesy CPHFW

The SS27 runways have wrapped, the closing parties have taken over, and Copenhagen Fashion Week has left us with the same stubborn question: Can fashion become more responsible without becoming incredibly earnest—or incredibly boring?

This season’s best designers answered with woven patches, deadstock tailoring, psychedelic prints, reconstructed sportswear and at least one fake beach with an impending sense of doom. In other words: yes.

Before anyone gets too excited, no fashion brand is perfectly sustainable. Copenhagen Fashion Week says so itself. Its Sustainability Requirements are admission standards—not a certification or full audit—and some emerging and guest labels are exempt or still being onboarded.

There is another important asterisk this season: CPHFW temporarily stopped enforcing two material-related standards, including its previous requirement that at least 60 percent of a collection use certified, “preferred” or deadstock materials. The organization cited changing industry guidance and the lack of a shared definition of “preferred materials.”

Translation: showing in Copenhagen does not automatically make a brand sustainable.

That is exactly why we looked beyond the event’s seal of approval. Our favorites earned their place through specific practices—zero-waste construction, existing textiles, slower production and craft preservation—combined with clothes compelling enough to be worn repeatedly. Because responsibility without desirability is just another route to the donation pile.

Here are the ten brands that did it best.

1. Stem

Zero waste. Full personality.

Stem is not a new discovery for us. We first covered Sarah Brunnhuber as a CPHFW One to Watch for SS25, excited by both her zero-waste system and the fact that the resulting garments were genuinely beautiful. We returned the following season for Pulling, when her experimental technique gathered digitally woven cloth into shape through hand-knotting.

For SS27, Brunnhuber developed that thinking rather than abandoning it for the sake of novelty. The collection, titled Re, contained just eight silhouettes, many based on existing Stem forms. Textiles were engineered to collapse into pleats when tension was applied, allowing shape to emerge from the logic of the weave itself.

Archived Ganni fabrics were unraveled, felted, pleated and reconstructed without producing cutting waste. Some contained synthetics—a first for Stem—but the point was to find another use for material already in circulation rather than manufacture more of it.

Guests were even invited to bring an old T-shirt to be repaired with a woven Stem patch. Imagine that: a fashion-week activation that might keep something in your closet instead of convincing you to replace it.

2. Iamisigo

Craft is future technology.

We previously named Iamisigo one of the labels worth watching instead of the usual luxury establishment. Our reasoning remains the same: as meaningful as Bubu Ogisi’s work with local artisans and reused materials is, it is the strength and originality of the clothes that make the label impossible to ignore.

Working across Lagos, Nairobi and Accra, Ogisi creates pieces with African artisans using traditional—and sometimes endangered—textile techniques. The label describes itself as a slow design house, but that phrase barely captures what is happening. Ogisi treats craft as a living archive capable of carrying history, challenging colonial narratives and generating radically contemporary forms. Iamisigo’s work is handmade from beginning to end, with textile preservation, circular design and regenerative practices built into its philosophy.

Sustainability conversations often fixate on newly invented materials. Iamisigo reminds us that some of fashion’s most valuable technologies have existed within communities for generations.

3. Collina Strada

Climate awareness, but make it chaotic.

No Kill readers already know this is not a new crush. We have followed Collina Strada since at least 2020, when Hillary Taymour collaborated with The OR Foundation on pieces made from T-shirts recovered from Ghana’s clothing-waste stream. Since then, we have repeatedly returned to the label for its rare ability to make environmental engagement feel exuberant rather than restrictive.

As Copenhagen Fashion Week’s first International Guest, Collina Strada was the obvious serotonin injection. Upcycled materials and local production coexist with distorted florals, clashing prints and fantastical silhouettes made for an enchanted garden party.

An accuracy note: the International Guest Slot was not subject to CPHFW’s formal Sustainability Requirements, so its presence should not be mistaken for certification. We are including Collina Strada because of its documented practices and its influence—not because appearing in Copenhagen magically awarded it an environmental halo.

Taymour builds emotional durability through clothes that feel distinctive, personal and genuinely fun to wear. The weirdness and humor invite attachment—the kind that keeps a piece in your wardrobe for years.

4. Sson

Welcome to the upcycled apocalypse.

For The Resort, Sson transformed its Copenhagen venue into a beach covered in white sand. At first glance, it looked like pure vacation fantasy. Look closer and signs of an approaching disaster began surfacing.

The tension was intentional. The Stockholm label used twentieth-century travel advertising and resort culture to examine the uncomfortable relationship between beauty, desire and consumption during a climate crisis.

Every look was built from secondhand clothing and existing materials. Jackets became skirts. Towels became shorts. Bags became capes and even complete outfits. Familiar garments such as boleros, bloomers and girlish dresses returned in sculptural, exaggerated forms that felt glamorous, constricted and slightly wrong.

It was playful, dystopian and extremely fashion—proof that upcycling can generate a complete visual world rather than a collection of worthy-looking patchwork.

5. Anne Sofie Madse n

Couture after the churn.

Anne Sofie Madsen’s SS27 collection, The New Desire, marked her final season in Copenhagen’s NEWTALENT program—and made a convincing case for what contemporary luxury could become.

The collection began with the square: a shape with no prescribed front and no predetermined relationship to the body. Through draping, subtraction and experimental tailoring, squares became shifting dresses, skirts and tops that changed through movement. Silk organza was hand-smocked and repeatedly dyed into graduated peach surfaces, creating forms that looked part geometry, part unfamiliar plant.

For a limited collaboration with Nike, Madsen layered and reconstructed existing T-shirts, preserving their graphics beneath transparent surfaces and transforming some into dresses. The garments moved between sportswear, daily clothing and couture without fully settling into any category.

Everything is made by hand in the brand’s Copenhagen studio; production is not outsourced. The studio works slowly with deadstock silk, wool and cotton alongside upcycled leather and shearling. Here, “luxury” means time, manipulation and creative attention—not simply newness with a large price tag.

6. Institution

Deadstock becomes an heirloom.

Founded by Georgian-Azerbaijani designer Galib Gassanoff, Institution was the winner of the 2026 Zalando Visionary Award and an LVMH Prize finalist.

Even the name signals that Gassanoff is building more than a conventional label. Institution operates as a social and artistic organization concerned with cultural belonging, community and the preservation of craft.

Most pieces are cut and constructed by the designer himself from deadstock silk, cotton, wool and leather sourced from high-end producers. Limited by the available materials, the garments function as collectible objects rather than endlessly reproducible products.

The brand’s signature weaving method draws on Gassanoff’s Azerbaijani community in Georgia, replacing traditional wool threads with cotton shoelaces while preserving the underlying skill. It is a brilliant balance: protecting inherited knowledge without trapping it in the past.

7. Paolina Russo

Sports, crafts and video-game energy.

Our Paolina Russo fandom is well documented. We singled out the label among the 2023 Woolmark Prize finalists, drawn to its technical knitwear, asymmetrical silhouettes and holographic effects. More recently, covering AW26, we wrote that the brand continued to prove responsible production could coexist with joy, color and exuberance. SS27 gives us no reason to revise that opinion.

Founded by Canadian designer Paolina Russo and French designer Lucile Guilmard, the label turns suburban boredom into a superpower. Video games, local sports and childhood craft projects feed a wardrobe in which nostalgia constantly collides with technology.

Crochet, tie-dye, macramé and traditional knitting methods are adapted into futuristic, body-conscious pieces that feel like uniforms for a team that does not technically exist—but that we would absolutely join.

The brand’s signature illusion knits can be constructed as zero-waste panels from Woolmark-certified wool. The yarn’s natural twist and the structure of the knit provide stretch without requiring the usual synthetic fibers. That technical rigor matters. So does the sense of play.

8. Mfpen

The grey suit develops a personality.

Copenhagen label Mfpen follows what it calls a “Responsible Hierarchy.” European deadstock, surplus and upcycled textiles come first, followed by recycled fibers, lower-impact cellulosics and natural materials. When those are unavailable, the label uses certified organic cotton for jersey.

Mfpen also keeps inventory limited and uses leftover materials for sets and spatial projects. But the responsible-material story works because the clothes already have a reason to exist.

Sigurd Bank’s relaxed tailoring takes respectable European wardrobe staples and introduces just enough countercultural unease. Raw edges remain exposed. Proportions loosen. Familiar shirts and suits look as though they have quietly rejected their office jobs.

It is restrained without becoming anonymous and timeless without pretending trends do not exist. Apparently, even a grey suit can have an interior life.

9. Nicklas Skovgaard

Less fashion. More drama.

We first put Nicklas Skovgaard on our radar through CPHFW’s NEWTALENT program, following a memorably theatrical debut presented entirely by one model: Amsterdam-based performance artist Britt Liberg. The designer’s ability to turn unusual textiles and classical forms into drama has kept our attention ever since.

Skovgaard produces two collections annually, building each one on what came before instead of treating the previous season as disposable. Production takes place primarily in Denmark and Europe, and the independent label uses surplus or deadstock fabrics when possible.

He is also unusually direct about fashion’s limitations, declining to use the word “sustainable” without context and acknowledging that making clothes inevitably consumes resources. That honesty makes the fantasy more persuasive, not less.

Skovgaard’s sculptural volumes, raw edges and theatrical silhouettes look as though someone has dressed for a glamorous event occurring only in their imagination. These are clothes with enough character to become part of a wearer’s personal mythology—which may be the best argument for keeping them.

10. OpéraSport

Romance with a game plan.

OpéraSport opened the SS27 show calendar inside Carl Jacobsen’s Garden with a collection appropriately titled Growth.

The setting informed the clothes: structured tailoring met fluid draping, sheer layers, lace, dimensional fabrics and botanical colors. Sculptural forms gradually gave way to more expressive volumes, translating the garden’s balance of cultivated order and wild growth into something romantic but not saccharine.

Behind that softness is a fairly detailed production strategy. OpéraSport uses recycled fibers derived from industrial and consumer waste, certified organic cotton and recycled or water-based PU. Production quantities are based on wholesale orders and expected online demand, while leftover textiles are reused in products, sets and campaigns.

The brand is developing repair and repurposing services too, though those should be judged once fully operational. For now, OpéraSport’s strongest argument is the clothing itself: wearable enough for real life, distinctive enough to keep and joyful enough to wear on repeat.

The Clothes That Stay With Us

What stayed with us from Copenhagen was the sheer range of ideas.

Across the week, designers found energy in handwork, experimentation, existing materials and slower ways of building a collection, while still delivering the color, tension, beauty and occasional absurdity that make fashion worth paying attention to in the first place.

These are clothes designed to inspire a lasting attachment, so choose the pieces that genuinely move you, wear them often and let them gather a history of their own.

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Copenhagen Fashion Week SS27: 10 Brands Making Responsible Fashion Fun Again

Translation: showing in Copenhagen does not automatically make a brand sustainable.