Cecilie Bahnsen: ‘Having grown up with minimalism, working with Galliano was such a contrast’

Danish design has long been associated with a subdued sensibility, a muted palette and a minimalist approach to both interiors and fashion. But a new generation of Scandinavian fashion designers is becoming bolder and more playful in their work while still maintaining the traditional practicality and hygge comfort that is part of their cultural heritage.

Copenhagen fashion week, which began in 2006, has, with government and arts council support, taken off in the past three years and is now taken seriously as a major player in the industry. Big brands like Ganni, Stine Goya, Baum and Pferdgarten, Malene Birger and Gestuz, all widely stocked in Ireland, have started to embrace colour, bright print and patterns over neutral shades. Rains, the outerwear lifestyle brand and the largest rainwear manufacturer in Denmark (due to open a stand-alone shop in Dublin shortly) has also become more adventurous in its design approach.

Queen of them all, however, is fashion designer Cecilie Bahnsen, who has a growing fan base at home and abroad for her ethereal dresses with their frills and flounces, baby doll silhouettes, billowing sleeves, voluminous skirts and innovative fabrics. Like Simone Rocha and Molly Goddard, with whom she is often compared, she is redefining femininity in new ways.

Her collections may be romantic and poetic but they are also rooted in Danish utilitarianism with diaphanous dresses balanced with knits, tailored coats and denim.

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We meet in her headquarters in an industrial estate in Copenhagen, a bright, spacious and airy studio on the sixth floor of a converted warehouse. Head of design Sara Bro-Jorgensen explains that this is where all product development takes place with a 17-strong, mostly Danish, female design team. The atmosphere is quiet, calm and industrious. Cecilie Bahnsen arrives dressed in a backless, white puff-sleeved dress from a previous season layered over a grey T-shirt and tied with bows. (She loves bows.) Fresh faced, wearing no discernible make-up, she is instantly friendly, warm and chatty.

“Our DNA lies in fabric and silhouette; we develop the fabric first and it’s a long process,” she explains, pointing out that the material in her dress is soft cotton matelassé from Como, which has a quilted look. The team are putting the finishing touches to her autumn-winter collection, which was shown in Paris on February 29th. Silver is playing a big part – and being completed is a corset bustier in papery silver topping a frothy white skirt. “I wanted the effect of Scandinavian light and how it shines,” she says.

Having launched her brand in 2015 at Copenhagen fashion week, she has shown in Paris for the past three seasons, justifying the move “because it’s where fashion is and it makes sense for buyers and press. Our biggest market is Japan. and buyers there are always checking the fabrics and how they are made.”

“I seem to pass the test.”

The daughter of a doctor and nurse, Bahnsen grew up in Copenhagen knowing she wanted to be a designer. Her grandmother, Hetty, who looked after Cecilie and her sister after school, taught her how to embroider and crochet, and even in her teens Bahnsen made dresses for friends. Smocking, ruching and other handwork techniques remain very much part of her collections.

“Working with my hands is like a meditation,” she says. At 12 an internship with the Danish Design School (now the Royal Danish Academy) and a week spent with a seamstress made her realise that fashion could be a career.

She later studied for an MA at the Royal College of Art in London and after graduation worked with Erdem in London and Galliano in Paris. “Galliano was like a fairy-tale and I was like a sponge at 21,” she says. “I remember working with him painting on the floor of the kitchen. It was so creative in every sense. Having grown up with minimalism, it was such a contrast and it was where I realised that there were so many ways to be creative.”

Her first big break was at London Showrooms in the Brewery Street car park the year of her launch. Dover Street Market bought the whole collection for their Haymarket store. “Their recognition of the creative element in the clothes made a huge difference.” Two years later Bahnsen won the LVMH prize “and after that we went from 10 stores to 27, got big orders and wondered how to complete them with just five people”.

She loves seeing how people wear her clothes. “You see a woman on a bike wearing a piece and suddenly it comes to life.” Her taffeta and organza dresses, with their full skirts and puff sleeves, similar to the one she is wearing can look so different depending on how they are styled; she is constantly intrigued and inspired by this, recalling one woman in her 50s who wore one of her light blue dresses for her wedding and a short silver one with trainers for the event afterwards.

“My dresses are often called effortless, but we are continually refining the collection as there are so many textures and so many constructions. We are pushing denim, outerwear and knit next to the soft dresses to find the right balance between soft and heavy and what grounds the collection.” Her collaboration with Asics on footwear has been another success “and hit a new target group we didn’t have before”.

As to the future, she does not rule out remaining independent, but would countenance outside investment only if it allowed for total freedom to create and if the DNA, vision and pace of the brand was respected. In the meantime, she is focusing on pop-ups, one in Tokyo with Asics, another in London in March and developing online sales.

Turning 40 this year and the mother of a 3½-year-old son, her partner is a children’s book illustrator and home is a mid-century modern apartment in Nordhaven, a former industrial port that is now a stylish and ambitious urban development. Sometimes her son joins her at work and one day she found him lying on the ground under a dress and told her it was like a cloud. “He brings out the playfulness in me,” she says with a smile.

Adept at combining extravagance with restraint, her aesthetic of modern relaxed femininity remains consistent and not based on trends. Her first collection was dedicated to the great Danish writer Tovi Ditlevsen, one of Denmark’s best-known authors, who remains a source of inspiration. But the greatest satisfaction for Bahnsen is always when she sees her pieces out and about, whether worn by a 16 year old or a 60 year old.

“Our universe is everything we create across the collection, and it is very much about the women who wear [what we create], bring it to life and truly love the pieces in which they have invested.”

Cecilie Bahnsen’s collection can be found in Brown Thomas