The schedule at Copenhagen Fashion Week is so jam-packed that it’s difficult to stand out from the crowd. Not so for London-based brand Paolina Russo, which held its sophomore show in the Danish capital this season. In lieu of a traditional runway presentation, designers Paolina Russo and Lucile Guilmard – who held their debut show in Copenhagen last season after winning the Zalando Visionary Award – held a night-time showcase in collaboration with Danish performance artist Esben Weile Kjær.
Inspired by prehistoric stone circles like Stonehenge, the circular set featured giant monolithic sculptures and a floor decorated with runes. Models danced and writhed around wearing the brand’s signature “warrior princess” silhouettes, while carrying colourful sun and animal balloons that represented the carvings you might see on standing stones.
Russo and Guilmard explained how they wanted to create a “Paolina Russo suburb” in Copenhagen via the show, after thinking about the cul-de-sacs they both grew up on in Canada and France respectively. This was reflected in the casting by Danish-born, London-based director Emma Matell – who also works with Sinéad O’Dwyer and Nicklas Skovgaard – which was a celebration of the Paolina community, featuring the brand’s pattern cutter Flo, as well as members of their production team, hairstylists and friends that flew in from London to walk the runway alongside local Danish talent.
“It’s the people who are wearing our clothes, and also making what we do possible,” Russo explains of the thinking behind the casting this season. Representation, too, was another important factor. “Our friends who wear the clothes – everyone has such diverse body shapes, diverse abilities. We think it’s really important to show people on the runway how they can wear [our clothes],” the designer continues.