The Fifth Fashion Week, How Copenhagen Rewrote the Rules

The Fifth Fashion Week, How Copenhagen Rewrote the Rules

Author: What's Contemporary February 3, 2026 Duration: 40:12
Copenhagen Fashion Week marks its 20th anniversary at a moment when the fashion system is being asked to account for itself. In conversation with CEO Cecilie Thorsmark and COO Isabella Rose Davey, this episode examines how a regional fashion week evolved into a platform with global influence, and what that evolution reveals about the future of the industry. “Fashion weeks were falling out of sync with the world around us. They were celebrating fashion in a bubble, while everything else was changing.” CEO Cecilie Thorsmark  “What feels contemporary now to me is generosity.” COO Isabella Rose Davey Episode Highlights: A reflection on Copenhagen Fashion Week’s evolution from a regional showcase into a global platform with cultural and economic impact over its 20-year history. Insight into how Cecilie Thorsmark redefined the purpose of a fashion week, shifting it from celebration alone to a system that engages with responsibility, progress, and accountability. A candid discussion about implementing binding sustainability requirements, including the real challenges of enforcement, support, and industry resistance. An exploration of why sustainability works best as infrastructure rather than storytelling, and how Copenhagen embedded it into participation itself. A deep dive into CPHFW NEWTALENT and what emerging designers actually need today, beyond visibility, including mentoring, financial literacy, and long-term business support. A reframing of the term “emerging designer,” challenging age-based definitions and highlighting reinvention, experience, and second chapters. A conversation about the advantages of being small, agile, and human, and why Copenhagen’s scale allows for experimentation and intimacy that larger fashion weeks often lose. A thoughtful examination of why brands should be allowed to end, evolve, or transform without stigma, and how creative energy changes form rather than disappears. Cultural insight into why Copenhagen feels different, touching on quality of life, generosity, openness, and the city’s ability to foster genuine connection during fashion week. A closing reflection on what feels contemporary now, distilled into two values that define the platform’s ethos moving forward: responsibility and generosity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The cultural landscape shifts constantly, and What's Contemporary Now? is a guide to its ever-changing terrain. Host Christopher Michael sits down with creators, critics, and innovators who are actively shaping the arts, from visual design and architecture to music and media. These conversations move beyond simple interviews, delving into the underlying philosophies and shared currents that connect seemingly disparate fields. Each episode unpacks a specific idea or movement through the lens of a guest's expertise, offering listeners a deeper understanding of the forces defining our current moment. Produced by Sasha Grinblat, the sound of the podcast is as considered as its content, creating an immersive space for genuine dialogue. You'll hear architects discuss the politics of space, musicians analyze the aesthetics of sound, and writers trace the lineage of new literary forms. It’s for anyone who feels that simply consuming culture isn't enough-who wants to understand the "why" behind the "what." By focusing on these broad, compelling perspectives, the series reveals the common threads woven through contemporary creative life, providing context and clarity in a fragmented world. Tune in to find your own place in the conversation.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

What's Contemporary Now?
Podcast Episodes
The New Masculinity, According to Samuel Hine [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:28
For GQ’s global fashion correspondent Samuel Hine, clothes have always been more than fabric; they were a form of identity long before they became his career. Growing up as an identical twin in Chicago, he learned early…
Sarah Ball on Editing What’s Contemporary Now at WSJ. Magazine [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 46:15
At this year’s WSJ. Magazine Innovator Awards, Billie Eilish asked, “If you’re a billionaire, why are you a billionaire? Give your money away” — a line that instantly reverberated far beyond the room. It was a reminder o…
Tish Weinstock Is an Amorphous and Contemporary It Girl [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 46:30
Talking to Tish Weinstock offers the kind of unfiltered honesty — or, as she calls it, radical honesty — that every interviewer hopes to find in a guest. She has a unique ability to move between the frivolous and the dee…
Adam Selman Tells Us Victoria’s Secret [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:25
The morning after his show debut as Victoria’s Secret’s new Creative Director, Adam Selman joined me to talk through the emotions still vibrating from the night before. The conversation moved from backstage calm to creat…
Observant and Optimistic, AREA’s Nicholas Aburn [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:58
Nicholas Aburn’s path to AREA was never a straight line. He grew up watching CNN Style with his mother, worked full time at Prada while studying at Central Saint Martins, and famously failed under Louise Wilson before sh…
The Shape of Reverence with Jerry Lorenzo [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:51
When we first thought to sit down with Jerry Lorenzo, we planned to talk about culture, fashion, the first official womenswear collection from Fear of God, and the unique background that made his future feel wide open —…
Season 6 Trailer [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 0:52
What’s more contemporary than the pursuit of happiness? The restless task of creating it, sustaining it, sharing it. It’s a game not so far from that of the creative class, with its inevitable demand for the next turn, t…
A Season in Progress, A World in Flux [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:17
While the world appears to have taken leave of anything resembling objective reality, and our feeds continue to oscillate between the surreal and the mundane in a choreography of dissonance, we have returned to the quiet…
Editing Creative Culture with System Magazine’s Jonathan Wingfield [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:11
In recent years, it’s become harder to tell whether fashion can still stand on its own, without leaning on the scaffolding of sport, film, or whatever cultural tentpole happens to be in rotation. But with the sustained r…
Where Optimism Meets Realism with Carlos Nazario [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 31:52
It’s easy to repeat oneself in fashion. Certain truths return again and again, not because we lack imagination, but because they remain unresolved. One of them is this—authenticity isn’t rare because people are unwilling…