By World Licence 
Runways aside, the real show is on the streets. This mantra resonates more than ever during the 2025 edition of Copenhagen Fashion Week, where the sidewalks are transformed into veritable style laboratories. If the runways dictate the major trends, it is on the streets that they come to life through bodies in motion, casual yet thoughtful looks, unexpected details, and the silent dialogues between aesthetics and functionality.
Copenhagen has earned its stripes among the influential fashion capitals for several seasons now, not for its extravagance, but for its ability to offer a vision of style deeply rooted in everyday life. A fashion that breathes, that pedals, that walks fast, that braves the rain, that chooses wool over latex. Here, creativity never sacrifices comfort. It is this philosophy that transforms every silhouette encountered on the city streets into an aesthetic manifesto.
This July, as designers presented their Spring/Summer 2026 collections, a different score was playing out alongside the runway shows: that of guests, professionals, influencers, and enthusiasts who vied with each other in ingenuity to express their vision of style. Far from flashy streetwear or ostentatious luxury, we observe a subtle search for balance. Layering is rampant: ultra-light trench coats over short-sleeved shirts, pleated skirts over cargo pants, sleeveless blazers paired with utilitarian bags. Natural, breathable materials predominate. Colors oscillate between powdery pastels, elegant neutrals, and a few controlled flashes of neon.
But even more than the pieces themselves, it’s the attitude that strikes. The looks aren’t static; they live. They adapt to bike rides, impromptu terraces, and weather-related setbacks. It’s a nimble, lived-in fashion. An oversized coat provides temporary shelter in a downpour; a carefully chosen pair of sneakers lets you zip from show to show without sacrificing style. In Copenhagen, practicality isn’t a barrier to sophistication; it’s even an essential component.
In this urban dance, individuality is expressed quietly and accurately. Everyone appropriates the codes without mimicking them. Scandinavian influences are evident, of course, but also a hybridization of styles from Seoul, Paris, and Lagos. The result: a resolutely contemporary, uninhibited, and conscious vision of style.
Copenhagen Fashion Week 2025 reminds us that fashion is not just about collectible pieces or silhouettes frozen on the runway. It is, above all, a matter of context, bodies in motion, and personal narrative. In the streets of the Danish capital, looks speak out and redefine what it means today to “dress to impress” without having to shout.
And it is precisely in this controlled discretion, in this attention to reality, that true modernity lies.
Photos by @sheremetmargarita & @angelineilmast