BONUS: AN INTERVIEW WITH CECILIE BAHNSEN

The designer on her favourite pieces from fashion history, creativity in Copenhagen, and constructing crinolines.

In advance of today’s Cecilie Bahnsen show (yay!!!), I thought I’d rerun this interview with her from the summer. Some of you may have seen it already when Old Fashioned was on Patreon, but if you have not, please enjoy!

The Cecilie Bahnsen headquarters are located in an industrial complex on the quiet outskirts of Copenhagen’s Osterbro neighbourhood. Surrounded by drab parking garages and loading docks, the space is decidedly at odds with Bahnsen’s signature floaty, flouncy designs. It’s not difficult to spot the designer’s studio, however, as the doors open and pattern-cutters, PR girls, and interns bounce out in matching dresses, carrying their lunches to the courtyard.

Practicality, restraint, and pragmatism are the cement-grey boundaries of the Cecilie Bahnsen world. It is only inside that one can find the trembling heart of pale pink fil coupé silk and puffed sleeves. I ventured in to speak with Cecilie Bahnsen herself, eager to understand her approach to the history of fashion.

Bahnsen is prone to speaking fast and studding her sentences with ‘likes,’ as if rushing to capture her thoughts before they evaporate into the organza ether of her surroundings. She does not wax poetic about obscure sources of inspiration. Instead, she tells me about the fabrics she uses, flips her dresses inside out to show me new crinoline constructions, and says that she likes to make sweaters every season because, quite simply, her Nordic customers need to be warm.