SS25 CPHFW Talk Series – Alpha Talks: Danish Fashion

The SS25 talk series with Vogue Business as media partner make up a vital element of the official schedule each season, representing an opportunity to dig deeper into wider issues facing fashion.

The talk will activate the global network of Copenhagen Fashion Week, inviting industry leaders from a variety of organizations and practices to speak across the topics at hand.

Furthermore, Copenhagen Fashion Week is excited to announce Vogue Business as official media partner, who will use their global audience to amplify the reach of the talks that will be launched as podcasts post release.

Topic:

To drive conversations about the cultures of fashion, Alpha has launched a series of conversations on fashion culture across the Nordics. This talk focuses on the past, present and future shape of Danish fashion culture.

Elaborating on the international recognition of Danish fashion and how the past, present and future shape Danish fashion culture.

Danish fashion is evolving. Designers, brands and organisations have gained recognition within, and beyond, Denmark. Danish fashion may be known internationally for its wearable functionality, green ambitions and bourgeoning talent scene, but what are the links between the past, present and future shape of Danish fashion culture? And which institutions and people have been instrumental to its developments?

The talk is the second in a talk series on Nordic fashion, moderated by Ane Lynge-Jorlén, director at Alpha, and it brings together fashion scholar Marie Riegels Melchior, designer and retailer Mads Nørgaard and designer and artistic director Louise Lyngh Bjerregaard.

Alpha is a non-profit organisation that empowers emerging fashion designers from the Nordics. Through international collaborations, exhibitions at Nordic museums, films and talks, Alpha supports fashion designers who show high levels of originality, creativity, progressiveness, craftsmanship and responsibility. Alpha believes in the cultural value of fashion and the craft and criticality of its creators.

Moderator:

Ane Lynge-Jorlén, Director, Alpha

Ane Lynge-Jorlén is the director of Alpha, an organisation that empowers emerging Nordic fashion designers internationally. Lynge-Jorlén is special advisor on fashion talents for Copenhagen Fashion Week. She holds a PhD in Fashion Studies from University of the Arts London, and she has published her research internationally, including Fashion Stylists (Bloomsbury 2020) and Niche Fashion Magazines (Bloomsbury 2017) and she has curated several exhibitions on contemporary, experimental fashion across, and beyond, the Nordics, most recently Liminal Objects. Contemporary Critical Fashion at Le Bicolore in Paris and Beautiful Repair. Mending in Art and Fashion at Copenhagen Contemporary.

Panelists:

Marie Riegels Melchior, Associate Professor in European Ethnology, University of Copenhagen

Marie Riegels Melchior is an Associate Professor in European Ethnology at the University of Copenhagen. Her research focuses on fashion, dress and design culture, cultural history from the 19th century and onwards, heritage and museum studies. She has written extensively on particularly Danish fashion and design history in the 20th and 21st century, as well as on the museological issues of fashion. She has published the critically acclaimed, two volume book Moden i Danmark gennem 400 år [Fashion in Denmark through 400 years, 2022] together with Mikkel Venborg Pedersen. Marie is on the editorial board of the journals Ethnologia Scandinavica Journal of Scandinavian Ethnology, Fashion Studies alongside Critical Studies of Fashion & Beauty.

Louise Lyngh Bjerregaard, Founder and Creative Director

Louise Lyngh Bjerregaard is an avant-garde innovator known for continuously blurring the boundaries between couture and artisanal ready-to-wear and for having created a new language in knitwear. The Paris-based brand is defined as a sustainable artisanal force, distinguished and recognised for its aesthetics, savoir-faire, credibility, inclusivity, and cross-season timelessness. Working with ateliers and artisans in Paris the brand pushes for longevity and transparency while actively engaging in knowledge sharing across the educational system fostering a gap between tradition and new generations demonstrating being a brand for the future.

Mads Nørgaard, CEO and Creative Director

Mads Nørgaard is an avid supporter of art, fashion and culture in Denmark. He is the third generation of a family of retailers and designers of the iconic Danish multi-brand store Nørgaard på Strøget. Mads' grandfather founded the shop back in the 1940s, selling clothes for mourning, which Mads' father transformed into a cutting-edge fashion boutique in sync with the spirit of the 60s. Alongside their own designs, the shop was one of the first in Denmark to sell the latest fashions from London and Paris. Mads owns and runs the multiple shops, alongside designing their menswear and womenswear collections. Mads is a Copenhagen culture icon: He is the editor of the Danish fashion encyclopedia, the brain behind Nørgaard på Strøget’s experimental window exhibitions and live performances and a supporter of artists, art fairs and museum exhibitions.