25 Years Later, This Is Still Copenhagen's Most Influential Fashion Brand

Copenhagen Fashion Week is always an exciting time of year, but this season is extra special for one of the event's stalwarts: Baum und Pferdgarten, which is celebrating its milestone 25th anniversary. To revisit the last two and a half decades and find out what's coming next, I went straight to the source and interviewed Creative Directors Helle Hestehave and Rikke Baumgarten. 

"We started in Helle's bedroom, and lucky for us, we have since moved on," Baumgarten told Who What Wear. "When we started the company, everything was still very manual. No Instagram or TikTok, only fax and phone. We did [it] all by hand opposite today, where patterns and prints are made digitally. The industry has changed radically and moves so much faster with so many strong brands. Today, having a strong brand DNA is equally as important as having strong collections." Scroll down to read my full interview with the design duo. 

What was Baum und Pferdgarten's turning point in the last 25 years?

By our third collection in 2001, we managed to sell our collections worldwide to some of the most important buyers in the world. That said, in 2004, we began our first official runway presentations and were able to showcase our ideas fully, so we'd say this was a major turning point.

In your opinion, how is Copenhagen Fashion Week different from other cities?

CPHFW carries the ideology of being a sustainable fashion event, which is quite different from other cities. The energy and emotion surrounding CPHFW is also very intense and exciting but still super relaxed. Visitors feel very at home, welcomed, and loved by Copenhagen. Unbiased opinion: Copenhagen is filled with great events, food, people, and music!

What are some specific trends you think Scandi girls will be wearing in 2024?

Transparent skirts, skinny jeans, and workwear jackets.

What's your most popular item of all time, and why do you think it resonated so well? 

One of our most popular items of all time has to be the checked blazer we did from the F/W 19 collection. The blazer was brown checked at the front, and the back was made of a silk scarf with a print of mountains. It was a two-in-one blazer, and it was a combination of both of us. We think people loved this odd combination of silk with a classical blazer structure because it represented two very different personalities in a beautiful and unexpected way.

What's your biggest goal for the brand that you haven't achieved?

We have a lot of important goals, but challenging ourselves to become more and more sustainable is one of our top priorities. We also dream of opening new Baum und Pferdgarten stores across the top cities around the world in an effort to share our brand with as many people as possible.

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