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Fashion week isn’t a natural bedfellow for sustainability. Editors, buyers and influencers are flown in from around the world, taking their seats at carbon-intensive catwalks and being ferried between events in private, often petrol-powered, cars. Largely synthetic clothes are paraded down runways, sowing the seeds of fashion’s ever-faster trend cycle — despite some designers’ best efforts to use the platform to send a message about the dangers of overconsumption.
Copenhagen Fashion Week (CPHFW) CEO Cecilie Thorsmark cottoned on to this conflict early. When she took the helm in 2018, she was tasked with turning CPHFW from a fledgling local fashion week into a major global player, and sustainability was her ticket to ride. This was four years before the European Union published its strategy for sustainable and circular textiles, and she saw an opportunity for CPHFW to set some guardrails for industry growth. “My conviction was that we had an opportunity to challenge the purpose of a fashion week,” she tells Vogue Business. “So we weren’t just a platform for showcasing designers, but for driving change in the industry.”
In 2020, CPHFW laid out a three-year sustainability action plan, reviewed by an advisory board that included Ganni founder Nicolaj Reffstrup, Mother of Pearl’s Amy Powney and GFA co-founder Eva Kruse. The North Star was a set of 18 mandatory sustainability requirements, which every brand hosting a show or presentation during CPHFW would need to meet. Last week’s Spring/Summer 2025 edition marked the fourth season brands had to comply. From next season, the bar will be raised even higher.
They’re feeling the pinch like everyone else, but with new retail strategies, pared-back runways and savvy sponsorships, the show went on for Scandi brands this season.
Berlin Fashion Week, Copenhagen International Fashion Fair, Norwegian Fashion Hub and Oslo Runway are all in the process of implementing similar standards. But the appetite of the big four fashion weeks to follow suit remains in question.
As global fashion weeks weigh their options — Thorsmark hints at announcements to come — and CPHFW prepares to raise the level of ambition next season, Vogue Business speaks to the designers already implementing Copenhagen’s requirements about the cost and challenges of compliance.
How have brands responded?
Critics might ask whether a fashion show can ever truly be sustainable, but Copenhagen has come as close as any to making this a reality; requiring, for example, set design and showcase production to be zero waste. Beyond the shows, the standards also span strategic direction, design, working conditions, materials and consumer engagement.
The brand response has been largely positive, says Thorsmark, not least because so many were unsure about where to start on sustainability and how to pursue it without putting themselves at a financial or competitive disadvantage. “Many of our brands had been trying to figure it out for themselves for many years, navigating all the different guides, tools, standards and certifications. When we came out with a framework that showed a common direction for our community, it was a welcomed initiative,” she says. “So many of the brands just wanted someone to tell them what to do, instead of simply encouraging them to do better.”
“The strongest part of the requirements is that they apply to everyone, so all brands are aligned on values and measured by the same robust assessment,” says Denise Christensen, CEO of Birger Christensen Collective, whose Remain and Rotate brands are among the largest showing at CPHFW. “The requirements have changed the way we work,” she continues. “Now, when we have a good idea, we think through every element of it before acting on it. We’re reaching out to schools developing new fabrics and trying to be more aware of preferred material choices. We use different sequins now, for example, and we became one of Circulose [formerly Renewcell]’s biggest clients. We have also applied for B Corp certification, because the requirements expanded the scope of our ambition.”
For smaller brands — of which CPHFW has many — the main challenge has been finding the resources to track and prove their sustainability processes, rather than implementing them. Conceptual knitwear brand A Roege Hove was forced to shutter last autumn to improve cash flow and refocus on supply chain development. Founder Amalie Røge Hove has always used innovative knitwear techniques to reduce waste, but says the material standards prompted her to rethink the way she uses textiles. “In the beginning, we always combined cotton and nylon. Now, we try to keep the elements pure, which makes them easier to recycle. So we have a full cotton body, for comfort against the skin, and a full recycled nylon insert, for volume and specific knitting techniques.” Her most recent show was staged in a beer factory, where no additional set design or props were needed.
(Di)vision founder Simon Wick, whose latest collection was 80 per cent upcycled, says rolling back the brand’s wholesale presence and focusing on direct-to-consumer has made it easier to meet the requirements. “Working with upcycling for wholesale creates too-high retail prices and too-low wholesale prices that simply don’t add up for a brand like us,” he explains. “It’s not impossible to make the two things go hand in hand. It’s just been very hard for us.”
For some brands, the current requirements don’t go far enough. Skall Studio works exclusively with natural materials and would like to see these standards replicated in other Danish brands. “You have to start somewhere and embrace different companies with different responsibilities, but we would like the see leather and shearling banned in the future, and more standards for how animal products are produced,” says Julie Skall, one half of the sister-led brand, who has removed all animal products from her diet and wardrobe, with the exception of Danish wool. “Synthetic fibres don’t belong in the fashion industry either, in our opinion.”
Peter Lundvald Nielsen’s brand PLN, which was part of the CPHFW New Talent scheme for three seasons from SS23, is one of a handful of brands not to make the cut under the new standards. It is working on codifying its business policies and practices, in the hopes of meeting the requirements in coming seasons. “It’s a very good thing CPHFW is doing, and it’s important that they are strict with it, but it just wasn’t possible for us to live up to the requirements,” explains Nielsen. “We are a small brand with only two employees, so we had to prioritise other things.”
Raising the level of ambition
Since CPHFW first implemented its requirements, legislators have caught up, setting a wide-reaching spate of policies in play to promote sustainable fashion, from eco-design principles and supply chain due diligence to banning greenwashing and the destruction of unsold goods. As such, CPHFW is raising the bar to bring its brands in line with legislation.
The requirements are not just about setting the direction of travel, but also the pace of change, says Thorsmark. “We need to keep developing and updating the standards, so we secure a continuous level of ambition.”
From AW25, the 18 standards will become 19. Some have split, others have merged, and two are entirely new: one to implement circular design principles and the other to prevent brands from causing harm through purchasing practices, a key lever sustainability advocates have identified to redress the power imbalance in fashion supply chains and afford suppliers the resources to enact greater change.
The wording of several standards will be updated to shift from commitments to implementation. For example, one standard initially said: “We are committed to exercising due diligence in our supply chain according to international guidelines and standards, and work with our suppliers, for instance, to ensure freely chosen employment, secure employment or no child labour.” It has since been developed to read: “We have a code of conduct in place according to international guidelines and standards, and work with suppliers via self-assessments, third-party audits or training, to build their capacity to meet the code of conduct”.
Perhaps most notable are the changes to the material standards. Previously, at least 50 per cent of brands’ materials had to be certified, preferred, next-gen, upcycled, recycled or made from deadstock. Now, at least 60 per cent have to be certified, made from preferred materials or deadstock. And where CPHFW had previously banned all animal fur, it will now ban virgin fur, as well as wild animal skins and feathers, also known as exotics. This raises its ambition in some ways, but reflects the industry-wide roll-back on fur bans in others, allowing for secondhand or deadstock fur to be upcycled in collections.
The standards are not a gold standard for sustainability, says Thorsmark, but baseline requirements. CPHFW also has a list of recommended actions for brands that want to go further. In the design section, for example, brands are encouraged to consider size inclusivity, adaptive design and innovative technologies that can curb waste. In the section dedicated to suppliers and partners — the section with perhaps the most potential to shift the fashion system — brands are encouraged to pay their workers a living wage, support collective bargaining, and bring supply chains closer to the end consumer.
Will other fashion weeks follow?
Thorsmark is keen for other fashion weeks across the world to follow suit, but as of yet, only a small handful focused on smaller markets and emerging brands have done so. Berlin Fashion Week is piloting its own version of the sustainability requirements before officially introducing them from February 2026 onwards.
There are many complexities to rolling the standards out across other fashion weeks. The standards are a serious financial undertaking for CPHFW, which not all fashion weeks are able to replicate. The survey brands are measured on has to be managed and audited by an external consultancy called Rambøll, with additional input from sustainability consultancy In Futurum and the Danish fashion body Dansk Mode & Textil, if needed. CPHFW also has to dedicate staff to overseeing the process and fielding questions from brands.
Each fashion week would need to adapt the requirements to local legislation. Berlin added a section on Germany’s Supply Chain Act to the requirements, for example, and has developed a unique code of conduct that expands on the pillars of freedom, inclusion and diversity. Berlin Fashion Week organiser Fashion Council Germany (FCG) offers support via training and networking opportunities to brands. “The role of fashion councils should be to set and educate on future-proofing industry standards,” says FCG CEO Scott Lipinski. “The limitation we face is that we only have an advisory role.”
While there are currently no mandatory sustainability requirements for London Fashion Week, the British Fashion Council (BFC) banned fur last season, and subjects its Newgen participants to minimum and bronze standards, which are based on CPHFW’s requirements as well as the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. CEO Caroline Rush says the BFC also encourages London Fashion Week brands to join industry-wide initiatives such as the Race to Zero, the Fashion Pact and the Sustainable Markets Initiative.
Paris Fashion Week organiser the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode (FHCM), Milan Fashion Week organiser Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana (CNMI) and New York Fashion Week organiser the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) were unable to facilitate an interview in time for this story. The CFDA pointed to its online resource hub for sustainability, which acts as a knowledge-sharing platform for designers, including an A to Z Directory of 400-plus stakeholder alliance-led initiatives and a library of downloadable evergreen resources.
Fashion weeks can be categorised by two distinct approaches, says sustainability and impact strategist Francois Souchet: engage or divest. “It seems to me that some fashion councils choose to engage with companies regardless of existing sustainability performance, with the intention of supporting their progress, even if they are not perfect. Others — including CPHFW — choose to only work with companies that satisfy certain criteria, divesting from the rest.” The appropriate response depends on each industry’s agenda, he adds.
Whatever the agenda, Thorsmark acknowledges the many practical challenges that come with implementing sustainability standards. “It’s a very demanding and resource-heavy framework,” she says. But she is resolute in her belief that requirements should be rolled out globally. “If this framework is to make a real difference, we need to widen the scope beyond Denmark. We can all agree that the industry needs to do better but, without regulations, competition will just keep driving more growth.”
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