It seems fair to call Henrik Vibskov the patron saint of Copenhagen fashion, as he set a template many are following — consciously or not. For one, he’s a multimedia artist; fashion is just one expression of his creativity. And he’s carved his own path in the industry; after graduating from Central Saint Martins and starting his own line in 2001, he found there was no room for his colorful avant-garde designs in existing shops, so he opened one himself.
You can always expect the unexpected from Vibskov. This season it was a set filled with small bridges and a finale featuring a women’s choir dressed in black with white safety vests and life preservers, who looked like adventurous nuns and had the voices of angels. Lately the world feels like it’s on the edge of a precipice.
Vibskov took bridges as the theme for spring; they’re “something that we as mankind have made for a shortcut,” he explained. (The environmental crisis proved the adage that there are no shortcuts in life.) “[A bridge] is also a place where we interfere with nature,” Vibskov continued. “You could say we are taking over the birds’ route”—hence the show’s title, Bird in the Face, which appeared on intarsia sweaters. There were bird patterns too, some of them more liberal than others. The bridge theme was also evident in arch-shaped sleeve treatments, which were especially lovely on plisse dresses.
There were some oddities in the collection, a group of pieces in a sheer dotted fabric with roundish appliques didn’t reach flying altitude, but the suits and outerwear made in a double sided fabric with exposed seams that will fray with wear, soared.
