Last season, cult fashion brand Ganni graduated from Copenhagen Fashion Week to the big leagues, showing in Paris for the first time. Since its inception, the wearable brand has been seen on everyone from Blackpink’s Jennie to Offset, and its “Ganni girls” have emerged as a lower-key version of Oliver Rouesting’s Balmain army. Today the GOATed brand returned for its sophomore show in Paris.
This season’s collection was an ode to home, in both a literal and metaphorical sense. The collection incorporated a mismatch of fabrics, with the brand referencing the eclectic textiles and knickknacks that accumulate in a home over the years. The reference came from creative director Ditte Refstrup’s trips to the UK as a child, where, accustomed to Scandinavian minimalism, she was charmed by the idiosyncrasies of British homes. “It was so exciting for me to see this whole new world of interiors, you know, people living with carpets, tapestry, there were so many flowers—the whole culture around it was so different from what I was used to,” Refstrup told Culted in an interview the day before the show.
And just like the home, the collection was designed to be a refuge from the outside world. “It feels like the world is so noisy today, right? And in so many ways, we started to talk about this protection, that you kind of wanted to protect yourself. For us, it’s more like working with these silhouettes that feel in a way protective, but in a very beautiful and soft way,” explained Refstrup. “The music is going to be poetic. I really want people to feel this quiet moment of peace.”
Since its inception, environmental consciousness has been fused into the Ganni DNA—And this season the house lived up to its B Corp certification, incorporating sustainable materials like Celium (made of fermented bacteria), oleatex (a vegan material derived from olive tree waste) pelinova (made of recycled leather fibres), and Cycora (recycled polyester textile waste). It also features sequins made of seaweed. “We're really trying,” stressed Refstrup.
But as someone who's hyper-conscious of fashions’ environmental impact—and as someone who goes to great lengths to stymie it— it must be strange for Refstrup to see so many fashion brands knocking off her sustainably produced designs. (Think the leopard print trousers that every highstreet store duped last season). “There's two answers to that. Coco Chanel used to say that the moment you don't get copied, you're doing something wrong. So in a way, we have to take it as a compliment,” she says. “I mean, it's a little bit sensitive to say because of course, I don't enjoy that,” she clarifies. I ask if there’s a part of her that’s glad the average consumer can enjoy her designs (even in a watered-down iteration), as Ganni (where a dress averages at around £400), is out of reach for many? “I come from a place where people are not able to afford what we may be so lucky [to have] in this industry, so I do understand the need for it," she answers. "I just wish that somehow, maybe it's a more political thing, that the politicians would help us to put taxes on [fast fashion] or do something to try to compensate for their environmental impact,” she says, before going on to reference the measures put in place to prevent overfishing in the fishing town in which she grew up. “Sometimes I think it would be a good idea for politicians to put that on our industry. If you produce that much, you have to pay this, or you cannot produce that much.”
And the collection indeed called a cozy house to mind: like your grandma’s country house— but only if your grandma had impeccable taste. It was rich in Shankar florals (a favourite of Refstrup), cosy knits and plaid textiles. But if the collection is home for us, where’s home for Refstrup? “My home is in Copenhagen with my family. But I think spiritually, it's more, in a way, in your memories. It's like inside of me, this tapestry of your life, everything you experience, it's friends and family, it's the community around you, it's the music that you love and the books that you read or whatever kind of makes you you.”
Featured images via Getty Images ©
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