Discover Nicklas Skovgaard, a designer who focuses on luxury womenswear and captivates the audience with unexpected combinations of materials and classical forms. Based in Copenhagen, he explores the narrative possibilities of textiles while crafting extraordinary surfaces. Skovgaard invites us to a world where dreams are woven into fashion, becoming a canvas for storytelling and self-expression within the Copenhagen Fashion Week AW24 and beyond.
hube: Could you provide insights into the creative process and specific inspirations behind the collection you presented at Copenhagen Fashion Week AW24?
Nicklas Skovgaard: My latest collection, shown during Copenhagen Fashion Week AW24, draws inspiration from three different muses and how they play with identity through the way they dress when facing their everyday life. One of the muses is Tess McGill, the ultimate working girl of the 1984 movie titled ‘Working Girl’. She alters her way of living and is empowered by changing the look of her hair and dressing in new silhouettes. The second muse is Lecia Jønsson, the iconic lead singer of the Danish 1980s pop duo Laban. She has a certain kind of laid-back approach to her appearance and way of dressing. She goes onto the stage wearing a jersey gown. Classic yet cosy and cool. The final muse is my mother, Annie, who went to London in the mid-1980s where she studied to become an aerobic instructor. When looking at pictures of her from this part of her life, a few years before I was born, I see these images as small ‘window-frames’ into her way of living, working and dressing at this time of her life.
The combination of all these three muses together and the different lives and perspectives they had during the 1980s has inspired the making of Collection 08. The collection discovers different takes on dressing for everyday life. How do you layer your dress when going out in the cold? How do you dress when you want to feel both cool and cosy at the same time? These are some of the thematics that I tried to explore by working with fabrications, silhouettes and details.
h: What were your expectations about the Copenhagen Fashion Week AW24, and what challenges did you have to overcome during the creation of the collection?
NS: With the past two shows I’ve made I’ve been trying to only focus on my expectations. What I mean is that I try my best not to let other people’s expectations and opinions influence the making of the show and the collection. You can say it’s trying to make my intuition and gut feeling even stronger for every new season. One of the expectations I had before the show was that I hoped to leave people with a feeling or their minds wandering when walking out the door of the show. Luckily, I believe I succeeded in doing so! One of the challenges I faced while working on the show and the collection was overcoming all the work it takes to first plan a show with everything from light to the cast, but then also make the actual collection ready not only for the show but also for the following market and sales.
We’re a tiny team and overcoming the load of work, but also the requirements of the industry that is still very new to my brand is very much a learning-as-you-go process.
