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ALPHA: Here are 5 emerging designers to watch at Copenhagen Fashion Week
We ask Ane Lynge-Jorlén, director of the support organisation for Nordic graduate talent and emerging designers, to pick the new names to follow throughout the week.
By JOHAN MAGNUSSON
9 Aug 2022

In collaboration with international labels and retail institutions, such as Browns Fashion and MM6 Margiela, ALPHA — previously known as Designers’ Nest — creates career furthering projects for Nordic graduate talent and emerging designers.

— Moreover, says Ane Lynge-Jorlén, we create projects of high cultural value, including exhibitions at Nordic museums. Alpha is the first letter in the Greek alphabet, and it means a significant beginning. The new name is a reflection of our sharpened profile with significant projects for early career fashion designers. We like to believe that we make a change for them.    

What will you and ALPHA do during Fashion Week?

— I will be moderating a conversation with Boram Yoo, Rolf Ekroth, and Anders Sølvsten Thomsen about Nordic Talent Trajectories for Copenhagen Fashion Week. We are also part of Copenhagen Fashion Week’s NEWTALENT showroom with Rolf Ekroth. As a second instalment of our talent collaboration with Magasin du Nord, we have invited Emma Gudmundson (pictured above) and STEM’s Sarah Brunnhuber to take over the windows of the department store with their zero-waste designs. The window displays will draw attention to the craft and hard work that goes into creating responsible garments. STEM has developed an innovative weaving system that straddles the whole process from design to production and Emma Gudmundson’s intricate, colourful knitted dresses with no cutaways demonstrate the work of the hand. At Magasin, the designers will also display the process behind the finished results. STEM and Emma Gudmundson have created a limited edition of unique scarves and bags that can also be purchased there.

Ane Lynge-Jorlén’s 5 emerging Nordic designers to watch this week

— Without a doubt Rolf Ekroth. I love his wearable pieces, layered silhouettes, prints and darkness. There’s a very appealing almost Nordic noir feeling to some of his work. He won ALPHA in 2015, and I have followed his work since. He’s now showing at Pitti Uomo and doing really well. 

Emma Gudmundson is also in town, exhibiting her work at Magasin. Her intricate knitted pieces that look like they are floating on the body are amazing. She’s now stocked at Browns Fashion. 

— Sarah Brunnhuber is a textile designer whose label STEM is very innovative. Sarah has created a novel, zero-waste system of designing and producing, where there are no cutaways, everything is used. 

— I also really like the Finnish label Latimmier for its sensual suiting, queerness and twisted masculinity. Ervin Latimer, the designer behind it, offers a smart,  loving, inclusive approach to masculine performativity. 

— Swedish label Jade Cropper is making sustainability sexy. Her pieces are both empowering, sexy, and strong, uniting high slits and leather.