Cover Cecilie Thorsmark, CEO of Copenhagen Fashion Week (Photo: ETX Daily Up)
Cecilie Thorsmark, CEO of Copenhagen Fashion Week (Photo: ETX Daily Up)
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Cecilie Thorsmark, CEO of Copenhagen Fashion Week, shares how they’ve put sustainability front and centre—and what more needs to be done
Copenhagen Fashion Week is hosting the crème de la crème of the fashion world until August 11, with some 30 shows dedicated to the spring-summer 2024 season. We asked Cecilie Thorsmark, CEO of this fashion week, to tell us about the commitments made in recent years to sustainability and the impact of such a model, considered pioneering worldwide, on an international scale.
Copenhagen Fashion Week is the world’s most sustainable fashion week. Could it serve as a reference, or a model, for Paris, London, Milan and New York?
As an industry platform and event bringing key stakeholders of the fashion system together, we are convinced that fashion weeks and councils have to play a role in the sustainability conversations and actions of our industry. Not only are we in contact with brands, international buyers and press, we also have a high reach through our online platforms towards the public and citizens which comes with great responsibility. Having said that, we believe we can make the greatest amount of impact by working together with other fashion weeks internationally, something that we have been open to and encouraging from day 1.
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Carbon Trust revealed that travel to and from Fashion Weeks in Paris, London, Milan and New York generate an average of 241,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year, roughly the same energy it takes to light up the Eiffel Tower for over 3,000 years. Should the industry totally rethink these fashion weeks, perhaps by focusing on the virtual or possibly a totally different approach?
There’s plenty of room to re-think fashion weeks on a global scale, looking at it from the lens of travel. Areas for discussion could include having fewer fashion weeks each year in fashion capitals, consolidating menswear and womenswear, not showing cruise collections etc, in order to cut travel emissions. Another approach could be to set a cap on emissions produced per show or per fashion week or to be very strategic on who is attending, who needs to fly or could alternatively take the train.
In terms of sustainable development, what have been the most significant decisions made in recent years?
Currently, we’re looking ahead (not backwards) to the upcoming EU legislation around the textile sector that is expected to include many new regulations for fashion brands in the coming years.
The fashion industry is often criticised for overproducing and generating mountains of waste. You’ve decided to impose “zero-waste fashion shows”. What does this mean, and how is it possible?
This relates directly to the production of the shows in this case, meaning all shows on the official show schedule commit to renting or reusing props and to recycling according to the Danish waste sorting system.
There’s also an obligation for designers to create 50 per cent of their collections from sustainable, recycled or upcycled materials. Is reuse the future of conscious, responsible fashion?
Reuse certainly plays a big part, before recycling. The most important step though is to look into the issue of overproduction and overconsumption, as you point out. With that said, reducing should be top of mind.
It’s a hotly debated topic: can we use waste, or, more broadly, upcycling, and practice slow fashion without sacrificing style?
Oftentimes there’s a very stereotypical image painted in the media of how slow fashion, upcycling, etc. comes with a very specific aesthetic, oriented more towards bohemian-chic. But if, on the contrary, one looks at design schools one will find many young designers working with these concepts in very creative, playful and innovative ways. On top of that, more and more brands work around these topics nowadays as well, broadening the spectrum of what fashion made of waste etc means and looks like.
In a recent report, you stated that you had achieved 35 of your 37 sustainable development goals, but failed on carbon emissions. Have you been able to pinpoint the reasons for that?
The reason we did not reach this goal is because we believe that our ability to impact the global industry to accelerate its sustainability efforts is interlinked with our position as an internationally attended and recognised fashion week. As an agenda-setting fashion week whose sustainability efforts are looked at and recognised by the wider industry, Copenhagen Fashion Week has deliberately chosen not to reduce the number of international guests at our events, even though doing so would immediately and significantly lower our carbon emissions due to fewer flights, allowing us to reach our initial climate goal.
Do you think you’ll be able to achieve all your goals this Fashion Week?
Yes!
Copenhagen Fashion Week is now famous for its sustainability, but we shouldn’t forget that Danish designers are also making a name for themselves on the international scene for their creativity and savoir-faire. Can we say that Copenhagen is the fifth fashion capital?
For us sustainability and fashionability always go hand in hand, and we are proud that Vanessa Friedman called Copenhagen Fashion Week the fifth fashion capital in a recent New York Times article which highlights the sustainability work that has been done.
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