Home really is where the heart is in Denmark, and Rikke Baumgarten and Helle Hestehave have really, really been feeling the love. They showed it by planning an outdoor show to which they could invite many guests while also engaging passerby. In addition, they demonstrated their support for the LGBTQ+ community by including a sweatshirt with rainbow-colored letters that read “Love und Understanding” and presenting it on the eve of the city’s WorldPride celebrations.
When Baumgarten and Hestehave say they looked for inspiration “close to home” during lockdown, they cast a widish net. The spring collection is a sort of valentine to the Finnish designer Alvar Aalto (who’s been name-checked by three designers showing at CPHFW.) Aalto’s work, says Hestehave, inspired the team to tackle new colors and shapes. “We have tried to emphasize these more round waves, which you see in his very famous Savoy vase…and we have tried to [bring] in both these more modernistic and monumental straight shapes, which he’s also famous for, and add to this with these more organic shapes and forms.”
Aalto’s extensive oeuvre offered perhaps an overload of inspiration, which suggested more variety than depth. If the collection’s frills seemed fussy rather than organic, the designers came through, as always, with tailoring. When dualities were reconciled in a single look—as when a blazer was paired with fluid, flared pants and a ’70s-style track jacket topped a billowing skirt—the collection sang. Knits in the form of a henley shirtdress and cheery, on-trend checkerboards were also notable.
The collection, titled New Spirit, paid homage to Aalto ideologically as well as aesthetically. “He never did anything without thinking about who would use his things, and I think this idea about doing products which we can all live in and we can all have a great life in is also part of the collection’s ideas,” said Baumgarten. Clearly this much-loved team took this to heart; it was no stretch to imagine the brand’s fan base showing up to the spring 2023 show decked out in these spirited and optimistic clothes.
