“Night Wandering,” a 1939 poem by Tove Ditlevsen, was left on the seat of each guest at Cecilie Bahnsen’s debut runway show in Paris. A voiceover of the poem provided the soundtrack to her show, because, the Danish designer said afterwards, “I wanted to bring home with me.” (She plans to continue to show in Paris, after this sweethearted debut.)
Crammed onto tiny stools around the Palais de Tokyo, guests were treated to a tour de force of Bahnsen’s strengths. Her dresses, the most recognizable made of starchy cloqué, came in every color and shape, some bobbly short little poufettes, others asymmetrically hemmed as though the wearer had haphazardly hiked then up on one side. (Bahnsen has described the genesis of her askew silhouette to my colleague Laird Borelli-Persson as a reference to how Danish women tuck up their skirts while bicycling.) Tiny textural knits topped off some looks, a new development in her studio, and pansy appliques dripped off shoulders and hemlines.
Seeing Bahnsen’s clothing in motion for the first time in years provided new dimension to her ideas. This season, inspired by Ditlevsen’s poem, she imagined oil slick dresses in shimmering materials that have the toughness and rigor to take a woman through all the hours of her day and night—sun showers to moon shines. Worn with sporty scuba shoes, the collection had a real forward verve; the Bahnsen girls were going somewhere. But where? Penetrating the simple sweetness of Bahnsen’s frocks can seem impossible at times, though maybe that edge-less beauty is the point. As Ditlevsen wrote: “All was beautiful: all gray and dusty pain / was washed away by heaven’s warm tears.”
