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For years, Scandi megabrand Ganni has been the blockbuster closing show of Copenhagen Fashion Week (CPHFW). But for Autumn/Winter 2024, the brand is stepping back.
Instead, it plans to financially support and consult with a group of emerging Nordic designers, who alongside their own shows and presentations, have each created a look for Ganni’s Fabrics of the Future exhibition, opening 30 January.
“We’re not saying goodbye to shows forever, but we’ve been showing for 10 years now, apart from during Covid,” says co-founder and creative director Ditte Reffstrup, speaking on Zoom from the Ganni HQ a week before CPHFW. “We’ve been debating this for a while. We needed to reset at some point, and the last couple of seasons, young designers have been struggling. We want to take the opportunity to welcome newcomers to [share] our platform.”
The young designers include Nicklas Skovgaard, A Roege Hove, and newer names Alectra Rothschild/Masculina, Sarah Stem, Jens Ole Árnason, Sahar Jamili and Sisse Bjerre. Some, including Skovgaard, have collaborated with Ganni previously as part of its Ganni Lab initiative. Others were selected because they’d caught the eye of the Reffstrups and their creative teams.
The designers will work with Ganni material innovation partners — including recycled cotton provider Renewcell, InResST recycled nylon, Savian faux fur made with Biofluff, leather alternative Oleatex and cellulose-based leather-polyester alternative Celium — to each create a look for the exhibition. Ganni introduced designers to the material partners, but gave them full creative control over the looks.
“So many talented designers have been forced to close their businesses in recent years,” says Ditte. “I’ve read articles about how much they’re struggling in other cities too, they’re not able to show, they’re not able to finish their production or ship it. This season it just felt right to support.”
Nicolaj and Ditte Reffstrup took over Ganni, originally a cashmere sweater label, in 2009. Since, the brand has become one of Scandinavia’s biggest fashion exports. In 2017, LVMH-owned investment fund L Catterton acquired a majority stake in the company, and in 2022 the brand hit €160 million in revenue, up 34 per cent on 2021 (it’s yet to report FY 2023). Ganni became a B-Corp organisation in 2022, ramped up its climate strategy — “insetting” its carbon emissions reductions rather than offsetting its footprint — and in June that year, the brand debuted its Fabrics of the Future initiative, outlining its goal to use 100 per cent “preferred” materials by 2025, including biomaterials or recycled fibres.
Typically, when a brand doesn’t show it feels like a cost-cutting decision. The Reffstrups insist this is not the case for Ganni. “Marketing is the only budget we’ve actually increased this year,” Nicolaj says, noting that the brand is spending a similar amount on this fashion week (across the exhibition, designer funding and a celebratory dinner), as it would on a show. “Plus, we’re going to do some fun projects in the spring,” Ditte adds.
Promoting material innovation
Material innovation startups are in need of a platform. Despite industry pressure for brands to reduce the impact of using resource-intensive materials like nylon and leather, many material innovation startups are stuck in the pilot phase, with a lack of industry buy-in and funding. Renewcell has faced a bumpy path to scaling its recycled fibre in the last year and announced it would cut 25 per cent of its workforce earlier this month. Bolt Threads halted production on leather alternative Mylo in June last year, after failing to secure the necessary funding to scale, despite backing from brands including Ganni and Stella McCartney.
Many labels are still hesitant to commit to large-scale collaborations with material innovators, as well as implement innovation into their standard collections and products, says Roni Gamzon, co-founder and chief commercial officer at Biofluff. “Every public-facing activity helps brands gain confidence,” he says.
Currently, 85 to 90 per cent of fashion brands’ carbon footprints derive from creating products, and around two-thirds of that is from the fabrics, Nicolaj says. With Ganni’s impending carbon goals to half its emissions by 2027, it needed to draw a line in the sand this season and push further towards 100 per cent preferred materials. As well as putting a pause on shows, the brand has had to make other compromises in order to achieve these ambitions. “We have to sacrifice a lot of great fabrics, potential best sellers and collabs,” says Ditte.
Implementing biomaterials or recycled materials is a challenge, Nicolaj says, as they must be tested for look and feel, aesthetics, permeability, abrasiveness and durability. (To improve on these metrics, material innovation startups require more funding; it’s a vicious circle.) Once brands have figured out the properties, there’s still more to be done. “Can the product be brought to market and fit into existing infrastructure, in the supply chain? If not, it can’t be used,” he says. “Brands need to consider all these things in order to help these new materials come to market in a viable manner. That’s not something that’s easily done for emerging brands.”
Ganni isn’t the first label to use fashion week as a platform for these textiles. To help raise the profile of alternative materials, Stella McCartney held a sustainable market during her SS24 show and at COP28, showcasing material innovation startups like Biofluff, seaweed-based yarn innovators Keel Labs in addition to plant-based, plastic-free leather Mirum from Natural Fiber Welding. Gamzon says the COP28 market was “incredible” for sourcing new partners.
It’s important to change the narrative on material innovation in order to encourage other industry players, Nicolaj argues. Talking about “alternative materials” prompts comparison to existing commodities like leather, that are established in the market. The exhibition is part of Ganni’s strategy to normalise these fabrics and make them feel more reachable. Ganni doesn’t sign exclusivity agreements with any of its partners, because it wants other brands to also use them, he adds. “Climate ambitions supersede being competitors, right?”
Looking ahead, the duo are excited to take Ganni to the US this year, to launch the brand’s hotly anticipated collaboration with model Paloma Elsesser, before the secret spring projects set in. Will they be back on the CPHFW schedule next season? It’s not set in stone yet, but they will definitely be back at some point, Ditte assures with a smile. “As you know, we love a good show.”
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