Rather than make the hop across the North Sea for her appointment in London this afternoon, Cecilie Bahnsen opted to present this collection via Skype. Covering such a no-show is contrary to Vogue Runway policy—if you’re not present to show your work, then don’t bother—however Bahnsen won a just-this-once pass for this first pre-fall review. Her excuse was that fall 2020’s edition of Copenhagen Fashion Week is just around the corner (six weeks away), and she was rushing to get ahead of that collection by Christmas.
A tight edit from this one made the London trip, which amply illustrated why Bahnsen has emerged from her hometown runway to become a buzzed-about designer. Influence-wise, her clothes combine the floral-heaped surgical precision of Erdem and the historically inspired romanticism of Galliano (designers under whom she worked before founding her line in 2015). To the first-time eye there also seemed discernible overtones of Simone Rocha via Rei Kawakubo, especially the new-to-Bahnsen suiting (taking in field jackets) which she said was partially inspired by turn-of-the-century “Catholic-looking” school uniforms. Worn below Bahnsen’s wonderful ethereal-girl dresses, the stompy boots featuring flashes of hardware, Vibram soles, and floral laces felt closer to an ongoing Sarah Burton dichotomy than Bahnsen was to her London showroom.
These are all great creative sources to draw from, but this designer is no mere remix artist. Her asymmetrical shirred harnessing and tie-fastened, vaguely 17th-century dress shapes in opaque Como-milled fabrics are straight-up gorgeous. The short-suits, whether in floral quilting or floral lace overlaid on nylon, might not have felt entirely original—perhaps there is a twisted refraction of Thom Browne in Bahnsen’s multifaceted mix—but like those dresses, there was a matter-of-factness to their precise execution that made them seem distinctly Danish, at least via the prism of this distant correspondent’s experience of that great nation. These are dreamy raiments for an Ærø beauty to wander in, unaware of both her own loveliness and that of her clothes.
