LONDON — The Copenhagen fashion scene considers sustainable slow fashion and wearability as its main pillars, but even for the Danes, there comes a time where there’s a need for speed.
Remain’s new creative director Martin Asbjørn has learned just that.
“My first collection was actually supposed to be for fall 2024 for which I’m presenting soon, but when I started on the collection and presentation it to our CEO [Denise Christensen], she said ‘You have to do pre-fall,’” Asbjørn said in an interview debuting said effort.
Remain Pre-fall 2024
The collection takes on everyday classics with a sharper edge — there’s less of the ubiquitous oversized blazers paired with leggings. The designer has streamlined Remain’s design identity by using leather in a bright glazed eggshell hue across bombers, skirts and tops.
It’s daring and sexy, something which Asbjørn isn’t afraid to embrace and he’s candid about the fact that Remain had “too many directions” in the past five years.
“I still see Remain as a very contemporary brand, but you have got to offer something [new] because the market is so tough right now. For me, I’m talking to a more grown-up audience and talking about sexiness, which is very new for Remain, even using that word. I cannot sign anything without having an element of sexiness because I feel like women of all ages can be sexy in different ways,” said the designer, who graduated from the Design and Technical Tailoring Academy a decade ago.
Remain Pre-fall 2024
“I’ve been told in the past that I can’t say sexy in the fashion industry because it’s not artistic enough, but who doesn’t want to feel attractive when they put clothes on?” he added.
This is Asbjørn’s first time producing a pre-fall collection and he thought long and hard about his female friends, who could be potential Remain customers.
He will present his first runway show on Jan. 30 as part of the Copenhagen Fashion Week program.
“I’m very excited and also very nervous. I’m also working in a big company now where there’s a lot of opinions. I feel like what we are presenting is something that is very new for Scandinavia. When I look at the pieces we received so far, it doesn’t resemble anything else coming out of Scandinavia and that excites me,” said Asbjørn.
Birger Christensen Collective, the parent company of Remain and other Danish brands Rotate and Cannari, reported a 28 percent growth in gross profit to 8.4 million euros and a turnover of more than 27 million euros for 2022 in 2023.
The company had a 16 percent increase in revenue compared to 2021 according to its annual report.
Remain Pre-fall 2024
As of 2023, the company had 70 full-time employees between the head office in Copenhagen and others in London and Milan. Fifty percent of the employees identify as female and 81 percent at the executive level are women.
Remain has a presence in several department stores with shop-in-shops including Magasin du Nord in Denmark; Harvey Nichols and Bloomingdale’s in the Middle East via Al Tayer Group, La Rinascente in Milan and Selfridges in London.