Nicklas Skovgaard has always found creative ways to present his collections, but with his spring 2027 runway he proved himself to be a consummate showman.
The action took place outside of a waterside terminal on a picture-perfect day with cottony clouds in a blue sky. The show opened not with a model but the arrival of a chauffeured classic car from which three women emerged and took the stage. They were a pop trio, the Skovgaardettes, assembled for the occasion and led by True Blue’s Maya Laner, who performed live (including a Cocteau Twins cover!) as part of a collaboration with Brodie Sessions, a local independent music platform. Then another car appeared, carrying three more women, models, who walked their walk and then gathered in a trio at the end of the runway, a process that was repeated until the whole collection was presented. It was a triumph of imagination and the apotheosis of Skovgaard’s character-building approach to fashion design.
Skovgaard, who grew up with the Spice Girls (and identified with Baby Spice) was turned onto The Supremes, The Ronettes, and The Shangri-las while watching a Danish television series about the ’60s. He started researching them, “but instead of just reusing the vibe of those three girl groups, I wanted to create a fictional girl group instead because I couldn’t really see [the others] representing the collection I was dreaming of making,” he explained. So “I decided to come up with this imaginary girl group called the Skovgaardettes.” (The designer was unaware that there is a precedent for this in fashion; Halston traveled with the Halstonettes.)
Having dreamed up his leading ladies, the designer had to dress them. “I knew quite early in the process that I wanted to build the collection in these small capsule wardrobes.” That meant thinking about coordinating trios of looks, many in gingham. The opening was a half-and-half dress short and made of small checks on one side; longer and with larger checks on the other. The second mixed two colors but moved the fullness from the side to the back; and the third looked like a sheath with a peplum overdress. There were boxy, ’60s-style suits with a youthquake spirit that didn’t look too vintage-y. Black leather pieces, including a slightly BDSM skirt suspended from a belt, were sweetly rebellious. Skovgaard, who has never abandoned his popular shirred jersey dresses, also continued developing the knit he introduced last season. A delicious addition to the fabric mix were pastel taffetas; the closing looks featured a floral jacquard.
The designer, who conceived of the collection as a wardrobe to take the Skovgaardettes from day to night, describes spring 2027 as his most conceptual collection—not that he would ever be mistaken for a member of the Belgian school. Rather, the best brain wave Skovgaard had was to follow his instinct and innovate rather than recreate. The result was a chart-topping.
Source:
www.vogue.com
