CPHFW launches emerging designer support program NEWTALENT

CPHFW announced the commencement of its emerging designer support scheme CPHFW NEWTALENT supported by CIRCULOSE® that formalises its dedication to supporting visionary talent of the Nordics.

Today, Copenhagen Fashion Week announced the commencement of its emerging designer support scheme CPHFW NEWTALENT supported by CIRCULOSE® that formalises its dedication to supporting visionary talent of the Nordics. The first brands to be supported in the scheme are A. Roege Hove, Latimmier and P.L.N.

CPHFW NEWTALENT is established by Copenhagen Fashion Week to nurture, develop, and promote emerging Nordic talent on a global scale. The scheme creates new opportunities for the three emerging designers via monetary support, mentorships, partnership offerings, professional advisors, onboarding to the official Copenhagen Fashion Week show schedule, event participation, showroom activations, alumni network, and extensive PR through Copenhagen Fashion Week’s international community and channels.

The three brands within the CPHFW NEWTALENT support scheme will be enrolled for three consecutive seasons. Subsequently each brand will graduate on to the alumni scheme, that will continue supporting the graduates of the CPHFW NEWTALENT support scheme across showcasing, events, networking, business support, communication and sponsorship opportunities.

“We are proud to introduce CPHFW NEWTALENT as a formalised structure to how Copenhagen Fashion Week is investing in the next generation of exceptional talent. With responsibility an overarching and foundational focus of our organisation, this scheme will allow us to continue to grow our dedication to talent. It is a vital step we have taken to provide an encompassing program for the talents to build their brand on an international scale and to introduce them to our global audience.”
- Cecilie Thorsmark, CEO Copenhagen Fashion Week

Partners & collaborators for the scheme

As the official partner of CPHFW NEWTALENT, CIRCULOSE®, a new branded 100% recycledtextile material, will reinforce its support to the future of talent and collaborate to exploresolutions to make fashion circular. Alongside Circulose®, ZENZ will uphold the role ofofficial hair sponsor of CPHFW NEWTALENT.

Copenhagen Fashion Week is delighted to continue the partnership initiated last year with the Swedish Fashion Council, whose extensive experience within talent development will further enhance the Nordic talents on the global fashion scene. Collaboration is a defining principle of CPHFW NEWTALENT, hence Copenhagen Fashion Week will also be partnering with the luxury group Vanguards and the Nordic graduate support platform, ALPHA. Ane Lynge-Jorlén, Director of ALPHA, will also fulfil the role of Special Advisor to the program.

By working across business growth, mentorship, and financial support as the foundational support pillars, CPHFW NEWTALENT will uphold a mentorship board comprised of leading international figures within the fashion industry, a show advisory board of global organisation representatives and service partners, Dansk Fashion &Textile and Finnish Textile & Fashion, providing industry support and advice across law, customs, taxation, international trade and innovation.

Alongside the focus on advisory and mentorship, CPHFW NEWTALENT will have bursary partners, providing financial support to the brands part of the program each season. The commencing partners for the forthcoming edition are Wessel & Vetts Foundation as main contributing bursary partner and Vanguards as knowledge partner.

Spring/Summer showroom

During each Spring/Summer showcase CPHFW NEWTALENT will host a showroom supported by CIRCULOSE® for the partaking brands. For the SS23 edition this will also host brands supported by the Swedish Fashion Council, one designer from ALPHA alongside one designer awarded by the Wessel & Vetts Foundation. The showroom will be created by Danish creatives inter.agcy and provide the opportunity to connect emerging brands with the Nordic and international press and buyers - growing their network, brand awareness and wholesale business.

Brands supported for SS23

For the SS23 edition, CPHFW NEWTALENT supported by CIRCULOSE® will represent the
following brands:

A. Roege Hove
A. Roege Hove is a conceptual knitwear brand that challenges traditions with a modern and artistic approach to original craftsmanship and an aim for silhouettes to be both effortless and extravagant. The unique designs are created each season by founder Amalie Røge Hove. With a master’s in textile design from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, and years of experience as a knitwear designer for Danish brands such as Cecilie Bahnsen and Mark Tan, she created the brand in 2019 as a way of bringing her own visions of knitwear to life. Defined by an experimenting and intuitive way of working with traditional knitwear techniques, the brand challenges our perception of shape and pushes our expectations of the materials and their behaviour.

Latimmier
Latimmier is a new ready-to-wear label by rising Finnish fashion talent Ervin Latimer. Latimmier collections are designed for anyone who wants to express masculinity with their clothing. The brand aims to expand the notion of masculinity by challenging who can perform masculinity and what kind of clothing can be used to do that. After graduating from the prestigious Aalto University in Helsinki in 2018, Latimer was headhunted to work at cult luxury label Alyx under creative director Matthew M. Williams. Since then, Latimer has worked for Danish high-end label Heliot Emil and in 2020 he was awarded awarded Young Designer of the Year in Finland.

P.L.N.
P.L.N. was founded in 2020 by Peter Lundvald Nielsen and then officially launched in August 2021 with the brand’s first collection (Collection I). Peter Lundvald Nielsen has previously worked for Balenciaga, Vetements and Ottolinger before starting his own clothing brand. i-D Magazine mentioned P.L.N. to be one of the best collections presented during CPHFW SS22. Since then, P.L.N. has received wide interest from both
leading dealers, international press as well as recognized creative actors. P.L.N. is a very personal project based on exploring a raw and uncompromising visual expression. The designer’s ideas and personal tastes form the foundation of the creative process. Here, European punk culture is mixed, with references to workwear, goth and antique religious attire in addition to well-considered silhouettes, thorough construction, as well as experimental reinterpretations. P.L.N. is based on a traditional understanding of the body, but is not limited to a particular gender or sexuality.

Mentors

Julie Gilhart, CDO & President, Tomorrow & Tomorrow Projects
Ida Petersson, Buying Director, Browns Fashion
Clara Cornet, Fashion and Beauty Strategic Partnerships, Instagram
Anders Sølvsteen Thomsen, Fashion Consultant and Stylist
Christopher Morency, Chief Brand Officer, Vanguards
Mahoro Seward, Fashion Features Editor, i-D
Nabil Aliffi, Advisory Board Member, Membership Collective Group (current), Former
Global Chief Creative Officer, Soho House
Bruce Pask, Men’s Fashion Director, Bergdorf Goodman & Neiman Marcus

Knowledge partners

ALPHA
Swedish Fashion Council
Vanguards

Main bursary partner

Wessel & Vetts Foundation

Show Advisors

In Futurum
Purple PR
Studio Boum

Special advisor

Ane Lynge-Jorlén, Director, ALPHA

Sponsors

Circulose®
ZENZ

Quotes from our mentors:

Julie Gilhart
“I am honored to serve as a Copenhagen Fashion Week Mentor for another year and be given the opportunity to help discover the next generation of talent. I am continually inspired and propelled by the search and have always believed that the best talent has yet to be discovered. One of my greatest passions lies in fostering new talent, and it’s a privilege to utilize this platform to mentor the next generation of designers in Copenhagen.”

Ida Petersson
“I’ve been so lucky in my career to have had some incredible mentors who, like me, have recognised early on the importance of giving back to our community. These days, my favourite part of my job is the time I get to spend interacting with emerging talent, and helping them on their journey. Having grown up in the south of Sweden—where my love for fashion first began—I went on regular trips to Copenhagen, so it’s extremely rewarding to now play a part in the CPHFW talent support scheme. It feels like I’ve come full circle being here today.”

Clara Cornet
“From the day it launched, Instagram has been the home for fashion and a supporter of emerging designers. Instagram is especially proud to join CPHFW talent support scheme to show our commitment to the future voices of the industry. Finalists will receive dedicated mentorship, so that they may learn how to make the most of Instagram and Meta family of apps.”

Bruce Pask
“It is vital and also inspiring to me personally as well as professionally to support and mentor new and emerging designers and creators. To create and found businesses, collections, and design studios requires numerous and widely varied skill sets in addition to creativity and imagination. It is imperative that those of us with knowledge and experience in any of the areas of the business that can prove to be useful and helpful to those starting ventures are generous with our information and advisement. Creators need to be able to create, and to be able to have as much assistance and information as desired and needed is a great help toward a path of success.”

Christopher Morency
“After years of standing in the shadow of big traditional fashion capitals, Copenhagen - and Scandinavia at large - has cemented itself as a birthplace of creative, innovative and sustainable talent. Along with a better knack for business than many of its European counterparts, the region’s talent is on to something big. CPHFW’s talent support scheme will prove just that.”

Anders Sølvsteen Thomsen
“I am extremely honoured to have been asked to be part of the CPHFW talent support scheme. There is so much talent in Scandinavia at the moment and I am excited to be able to collaborate with young designers, and hopefully be able to guide them through my own experiences working in the industry. Everything in fashion is based around collaboration. You can’t create without a strong team of collaborators. The industry is constantly evolving and I look at this as an opportunity for a collaboration rather than just a one-way support system.”

Nabil Aliffi
“I find it a great privilege to be a part of the CPHFW talent support scheme, where so many young bold designers have emerged. For many years, CPHFW has challenged our ways of working and thinking, specifically, when it comes to sustainability. I am beyond excited to share my learnings with the next generation of designers who are going to shape fashion’s future.”

Mahoro Seward
“Being part of the talent support scheme is a privilege — the Nordic region has such a rich tradition of innovative yet applicable design, and it’s truly exciting to see how that tradition is being interpreted by a generation imbued with perspectives, approaches and values. I strongly believe that, especially in fashion, young designers are where the real potential for the changes we need to see in fashion can be actualised — playing a part in guiding potentially industry-shaping ideas and visions makes my job worth doing.”