What Stood Out at Copenhagen Fashion Week: The Trends to Watch Next

The 5 Copenhagen Fashion Week Trends to Watch

Read together, the SS27 collections describe an evolution rather than a rupture. Structure is loosening into fluidity, proportion is being redrawn from the knee, intimacy is moving into daylight, decoration is returning without irony, and function is being treated as a design language rather than a compromise. Each of the five directions below appeared across multiple Copenhagen Fashion Week designers, which is what separates an emerging direction from a single show's idea.

01. Soft, Dreamy & Sculptural Silhouettes

The most consistent signal on the Copenhagen runway was atmospheric: chiffon, organza, silk georgette and layered tulle, cut into shapes that hold volume without holding the body. Collina Strada showed clothes that seemed to move a half-second after the model did. Institution built sculptural outerwear from translucent panels, an argument for wearable art made in a city that usually argues for wearable clothes. Anne Sofie Madsen worked delicate material into forms with genuine architecture.

The editorial reading is that fashion may be moving away from rigid tailoring and utility-heavy silhouettes toward something more fluid and emotionally expressive. Not softness as prettiness — softness as structure. The volume is deliberate, the draping is engineered, and the effect is closer to sculpture than to romance.

In a real wardrobe this begins with one fluid piece worn against something severe: a chiffon skirt with a heavy knit, an organza blouse under sharp tailoring. The contrast is what keeps it modern, and it is the same principle we apply throughout the quiet luxury work wardrobe. A single fluid chiffon dress or a sheer organza layering piece is enough to test the direction before committing to it.

02. The New Long Short

Calling this the return of the Bermuda short would miss the point. What The Garment and MKDT Studio proposed for Spring/Summer 2027 is a shift in proportion: the hemline settling just above or below the knee, the leg lengthened rather than exposed, the short cut in the same fine wool and gabardine that would otherwise have become a trouser.

Culottes belong to the same conversation, as do wide cropped trousers that stop at the calf. Together they redraw the lower half of the silhouette at a length fashion has largely ignored for a decade — long enough to read as tailoring, short enough to change the rhythm of an outfit entirely.

It works when the rest of the look stays adult: a crisp shirt, an unstructured blazer, a flat leather shoe, bare or sheer legs depending on the weather. A well-cut pair of tailored long shorts with a relaxed blazer and a poplin shirt is the whole trend in three pieces.

03. Lingerie Leaves the Bedroom

Slip dresses, visible lace trims, sheer camisoles worn over shirts, bias-cut silk, pyjama-adjacent sets in fabric far too good for sleeping: the SS27 collections, The Garment among them, treated lingerie and sleepwear as legitimate daywear vocabulary rather than as provocation.

The Copenhagen version is notably unerotic, and that is precisely why it will travel. A silk slip under a heavy coat reads as restraint, not exposure. A lace-trimmed camisole with wide trousers and flat shoes is a working outfit. The suggestion is that intimacy of fabric — the weight, the fall, the temperature of silk against skin — is becoming a design value in its own right.

Weight contrast is the entire rule. One delicate layer, everything else substantial. Start with a bias-cut silk slip dress or a lace-trimmed camisole, then anchor it with a tailored coat. It is the same logic of contrast that governs elegant colour combinations, applied to texture instead of tone.

04. Fashion Gets Playful Again

Polka dots were everywhere, but the more useful observation is what they represent. Stine Goya sent painterly prints and sculptural shapes; Henrik Vibskov did what he has always done, which is refuse solemnity; Nicklas Skovgaard worked in candy colours and nostalgic silhouettes; Caro Editions leaned into decorative femininity without apology.

Taken together, these Copenhagen Fashion Week designers are signalling a broader return to personality and decoration — pattern used structurally, colour used for pleasure, historical references pulled in without pastiche. After a decade in which restraint was the only respectable position, SS27 suggests that expressiveness is being readmitted to the serious wardrobe.

The adult way to wear it is to give the print one job. A polka dot dress with plain shoes and no jewellery, or a pastel coat over an otherwise neutral outfit. A printed silk scarf or a pair of sculptural earrings will carry the idea at a lower risk. If colour is where you hesitate, our guide to wearing colour without losing elegance is the companion piece to this trend.

05. Nautical, Technical & The New Utility

Rope drawcords, sailor stripes, swim-inspired layering, technical shells cut with the precision of tailoring, sporty pieces elevated rather than borrowed: The Garment, Skall Studio, Paolina Russo and Anne Sofie Madsen all worked, in different registers, on the same idea.

Copenhagen is not abandoning function — it is making function more beautiful. That distinction matters, because it is the through-line of Scandinavian design itself. These are clothes conceived for weather, for bicycles, for a day that does not end when the office does; SS27 simply raised the standard of what a functional garment is allowed to look like.

The pieces to look for are the elevated basics: a striped knit, a technical anorak, a pair of wide utility trousers. Finish with the accessories that hold a relaxed silhouette upright — a well-chosen pair of sunglasses does more work here than any garment.

Designers Already Pointing to What's Next

The Garment — the season's most complete argument: travel dressing, lingerie references, long shorts and a functional wardrobe thought through as a system rather than a set of looks.

Collina Strada — ethereal silhouettes and experimental craftsmanship, softness treated as a technical problem rather than a mood.

Institution — sculptural outerwear in chiffon and translucent panelling, cultural craftsmanship pushed toward wearable art.

Stine Goya — painterly prints and artistic references, now with a firmer sculptural line beneath the colour.

Anne Sofie Madsen — technical and sport influences combined with delicate materials, the season's most persuasive contradiction.

Nicklas Skovgaard — nostalgic references, candy colour and playful proportion, made with unexpected rigour.

Paolina Russo — sportswear and experimental construction, and the clearest evidence that utility can be an aesthetic position.

One to Watch: The Unexpected Shoe

The Studio Constance x Havaianas kitten-heel flip-flop was the small object everyone photographed, and it is worth noting less for itself than for what it represents. The interesting movement in Copenhagen footwear is not a shape but a method: taking a familiar, unglamorous wardrobe staple and reinterpreting it just far enough to change its register.

Whether this particular shoe travels is beside the point. The instinct behind it — reinvention of the ordinary rather than invention of the new — is the one to watch across accessories over the next few seasons.

What Copenhagen Is Telling Us About the Future of Scandi Style

Copenhagen is not rejecting minimalism. It is showing us what may come after it: a more personal, playful, romantic and expressive version of Scandinavian fashion, built on the same disciplined foundations. The clean line remains — it has simply stopped being the whole argument.

What the SS27 runways suggest, taken together, is a wardrobe that keeps its structure and then disturbs it on purpose. One fluid fabric. One redrawn proportion. One delicate layer under something heavy. One decorative gesture allowed to be the loudest thing in the room. That is a forecast a considered wardrobe can absorb without being dismantled.

For more on how these directions translate into everyday dressing, explore our fashion coverage and our personal style discovery — the most useful filter for deciding which of these emerging directions is actually yours.