After an eight-year runway hiatus, Anne Sofie Madsen returns to Copenhagen Fashion Week under the NewTalent banner—but don’t call her an emerging designer. Teaming up with Caroline Clante, Madsen’s SS26 collection is a rebellious remix of misunderstood garments, bad taste, and a defiant reinvention of what “new” really means.
Since its inception, the designers accepted to the CPHFW NewTalent programme (which offers emerging brands both financial and strategic support over the course of three seasons) have been – more or less – straight out of design school. Anne Sofie Madsen, however, is not one to play by the rules. Not anymore, anyway. A disciple of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano, Madsen established her own beloved namesake line in 2011, working steadily up until 2017, until, in Bravo parlance, she put things “on pause”. “I wanted to leave the traditional fashion routine,” she says.
Last season, however, Madsen linked up with designer and longtime friend Caroline Clante and whipped up a collection that the duo presented off-schedule to a handful of friends and journalists. Both women – who hail from different generations but claim to mutually live in “a past where we weren’t born and a future that hasn’t arrived yet” – were struck by how much fun it was. Deciding they wanted to continue to explore Anne Sofie Madsen 2.0, they were encouraged to apply to the NewTalent programme. “We’re grateful that their way of looking at being new in business doesn’t mean being straight out of school,” says Madsen. “Sometimes you need a little help in order to launch your project.” And here we are, at spring/summer '26 with the first Anne Sofie Madsen runway show in eight years.
Speaking of not playing by the rules, this time around, Madsen and Clante are eschewing the notion of theme and instead drawing on seemingly disparate reference points (Cadillacs, the colours of American diners in the 1950s, a certain unnamed sentence by philosopher Walter Benjamin) to create garments that will come to define the new Anne Sofie Madsen universe. According to objects strewn in centre of the show space, this universe also includes The Cramps, half-burned candles, the film Paris, Texas and a rat sculpture by artist Esben Weile Kjær (the rat is imagined as a charming clutch bag, carried by models as well as the artist himself, who sat front row). We were talking a lot about what we want to wear,” says Madsen. Clante nods, adding, “And maybe looking at some pieces that are normally misunderstood that we would like to shed a new light on or bring new meaning to.”
Such misunderstood garments include suspenders (affixed to a gorgeous bustled silk skirt) the sixpence hat (draped in tulle) and the Perfecto biker jacket (reimagined as a structured bustier or a cropped vest). These things commonly thought of as “bad taste” – the worst possible markers of so-called masculinity in the hands of Madsen and Clante, gain an unexpected – almost impossible – cool. On the other end of the spectrum, gauzy princess dresses, draped effortlessly around the body, also become utterly desirable garments, sure to be scooped up by It girls locally and abroad. “Studying at a Scandinavian school, at least when I was a student, the aesthetics were clean and minimal and everything that was considered extremely feminine or princess-y or girlish was kind of taboo,” says Madsen, adding that on a personal note, both she and Clante tend to dress more like “teenage boys”. “That really provoked me. Why is everything female considered uncool or less intellectual?”
And so, we get a glimpse into what Anne Sofie Madsen, this not-entirely-new NewTalent is cooking up: a challenge of bad taste, a subversion of expectations and a cheeky middle finger to everything she learned both in school and in fashion’s school of hard knocks. And if that isn’t new, I don’t know what is.
See all the looks from the Anne Sofie Madsen SS26 collection below:
