Danish fashion brand Ganni is celebrating its tenth anniversary as a participant in Copenhagen Fashion Week (CPHFW) by foregoing a fashion show. Instead, the sustainability-oriented label presents pioneering materials, such as Celium from Polybion, a pioneering alternative to synthetic materials derived from petroleum, and Savian from BioFluff, a plant-based fur alternative.
“This February, Ganni will take a break from show programming and focus its efforts on supporting emerging talent by making its platform available to emerging creatives while also introducing its in-house innovation platform ‘Fabrics of The Future,'” it said press release published on Tuesday afternoon.
The “Fabrics of The Future” initiative was launched in 2022 as part of the Global Fashion Summit. It aims to research and develop innovative, lower-carbon and preferred materials that are alternatives to traditional materials and “will play a crucial role in making fashion more responsible,” says Ganni.
Seven designers and artists are taking part
The Danish brand has commissioned works and complete looks from a group of seven creatives, including five designers and two artists, who will create a bespoke design using “Fabrics of the Future” as well as leftover and waste materials .
The designers include Danish CPHFW Newtalent graduate Nicklas Skovgaard, who founded his eponymous luxury women’s clothing brand in 2020. He previously worked with Ganni on a small collaboration with BioFluff in June 2022 as part of the Global Fashion Summit activation. For Ganni’s “Future, Talent, Fabrics” exhibition, Skovgaard will design a dress using Savian by BioFluff, a bio-based Oleatex alternative, and Circulose.
Copenhagen-based designer and CPHFW Newtalent One-to-Watch Alectra Rothschild, whose body-hugging label Masculina creates “a dramatic, revealing and slightly chaotic aesthetic,” will work with Oleatex bio-based leather alternatives and Circulose denim.
Danish designer and CPHFW Newtalent Alumni Amalie Røge Hove’s Copenhagen knitwear label A. Roege Hove works with Fabrics of The Future, InResST and Circulose. It also uses recycled wool yarn from the Omega yarn factory that Ganni used to make hats and combines it with its own leftover yarn.
Swedish School of Textiles graduate and Ganni Next-Gen Talent Sisse Bjerre explores alternative methods of making garments, using paper as the main medium and experimenting with natural materials such as moss and branches. She will create a design for the exhibition using paper and cellulose.
Copenhagen-based textile designer and Ganni next-gen talent Sarah Brunnhuber developed Stem, a zero-waste production process for clothing. She previously worked on a three-piece, circular collection with Ganni in June 2022 and for the exhibition will work with her own leftover yarn in a zero-waste process that gives the wool new capabilities.
Copenhagen-based designer, textile artist and Ganni next-gen talent Jens Ole Árnason worked for Stem on the collaboration with Ganni GFA Pop-up in 2022. Since then he has been working under his own name, creating, among other things, sculptures from deadstock materials, like himself she also created for the upcoming exhibition.
Sahar Jamili is a Danish-Azerbaijani-Iranian visual artist with a BFA from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts who grew up in Copenhagen. For the exhibition she is designing a sculpture with a cage based on her recent work Insight Out, which was shown at Kunsthal Charlottenborg. However, this version of the sculpture is filled with Ganni waste, which is usually sent to I:CO, the brand’s recycling center, providing a visual commentary on overconsumption in the fashion industry.