Set upon the city’s concrete peninsula playground, Refshaleøen, Copenhagen Fashion Week hosts Cecilie Bahnsen’s 10th anniversary show, “Hana-bi.” As symbolized in the show’s title, the Japanese word for fireworks, the collection embraces dualities—delicacy and disruption, sharpness and softness, and the show’s thematic characters, “flower” and “fire.” Like that of a celebratory candle, the collection is illuminatory, beaming and blooming in shades of white that slip into a reflective silver.

Courtesy of Cecilie Bahnsen

Every collection begins somewhere, and for Bahnsen, that place is a blank canvas—“every time I begin a new collection, I start with white,” she notes. The decade-long archive was revisited, meditated upon, remembered, and let go. The house’s history is precisely curated as a collage of past and present—most pieces are reborn, taken from past collections and reshaped into a new season of one-offs. 

Courtesy of Cecilie Bahnsen

Refinement grows into extravagance. Simple sleeveless dresses plunge into a ballooning peplum. Skirts of delicate lace swell into cloud-like puffs. Minimalistic silhouettes are comprised of breezy mesh, intricate lace, or lustrious sequins. 

The house’s existing forms and textiles are twisted, flipped, recolored, compressed, expanded, embroidered, foiled, and relined, though the memory of old seasons remains, transferred through the fabric.

Courtesy of Cecilie Bahnsen

Select pieces from the show will be available for purchase directly from the runway or as made-to-order. Additionally, the collection will also be showcased in Cecilie Bahnsen’s newly opened Copenhagen boutique, where the looks can be acquired by private appointment.