Female expression, and the different ways in which women find their voices, has always inspired Cecilie Bahnsen – whether it’s through painting, sculpture, glass, ceramics or sport, you can feel the influence of countless women in every corner of the Danish designer’s namesake label. This season, Bahnsen cast her eye to the world of dance, enlisting ex-La Horde dancer Myrto Georgiadi – who first walked for the brand in 2024 – as a key creative collaborator on both the choreography of the show and the collection itself.
“I love collaborating with different female creatives and seeing how they express themselves,” says Bahnsen, who designed her Autumn/Winter 2026 collection with the beauty and practical physical needs of dancers in mind. “There’s a true femininity in dance that I wanted to embrace.” This season, studio fittings with Copenhagen-based ballerina Maria Kochetkova ensured that dancers felt free, instead of restricted, by the clothes while performing physically demanding routines. “How do you flare the hem so a dancer can move?” Bahnsen recalls of these early conversations. “What about the weight of the fabric? Normally my waistlines are high, but we had to drop them so that the dancers could hold each other. These collaborations are useful as they challenge you to move in a new direction and to learn about how different women feel in your clothes.”
On a balmy Thursday afternoon at Paris Fashion Week, in a mirrored venue overlooking the Seine, the brand put its concept of “everyday couture” to the test. A crew of dancers – street cast in Marseille months earlier by Emma Matell, many of them part of Myrto Georgiadi’s newly launched dance studio Oráma Atelier – filtered into the space in Bahnsen’s glittering, hyper-feminine ensembles, stretching and walking the runway before gradually easing into a fully-fledged performance. Set to a booming soundtrack by Danish composer August Rosenbaum, there was an infectious and palpable sense of joy as dancers zigzagged and pirouetted playfully through the space in bouncy layers of tulle and organza. Titled ‘Practice’, the show was about embracing states of imperfection and in-betweeness. “I have a son who is five, and he just wants things to be perfect immediately,” says Bahnsen. “I’m trying to encourage this beauty along the way, and for me, dance embodies that.”
If a sense of imperfection and messiness was embraced in the show’s performance, the same could not be said of Bahnsen’s designs – awe-inspiring, meticulously intricate sculptural creations that channel the simultaneous strength and fragility of the female form. This season, the brand melded the feminine with the functional in new and daring ways, unveiling sculptural flared dresses with technical cord zigzagged across the bodice – a modern athlete’s version of corsetry – sporty harness backpacks dripping in sparkling mounds of floral applique and sequins, and padded puffer jackets, fleeces and elegant base layers created for the brand’s ongoing collaboration with The North Face. More traditional and formal feminine looks appeared too, with pastel-hued bias-cut silk satin dresses that “really kiss the body” and delicate midnight navy and black tulle gowns embroidered with shimmering floral motifs, while dance-specific details included ballet pumps encrusted with more sequined floral applique, paired with cosy grey legwarmers pulled down over shoe heels.
This approach of mixing sportier, casual pieces with more formal, hyper-feminine designs felt true not only to how dancers dress, but to Bahnsen herself. “Part of how I wear the brand myself is that I want to put it on on a Monday and feel like I can live it,” she explains. “I want to go and get my son from kindergarten and then go about my day in my poofy dress with a jumper over it.” Bahnsen’s designs demand to be seen in the flesh, such is their remarkable buoyancy and lightness – there is an almost otherworldly defying of gravity at play. “My designs are so light and airy, it feels like you’re putting on a cloud,” she says. “It’s very important to me that there’s a true comfort in the movement, and an ease to it.”
Born just outside Copenhagen, Bahnsen attended the Danish Design School before working at John Galliano and Erdem. In 2015, she returned to Copenhagen to launch her eponymous label, earning a place as an LVMH Prize finalist in 2017 and a slot on the Paris Fashion Week schedule since 2022 (the brand is stocked in more than 100 stores globally, and at Dover Street Market outposts around the world in China, Japan, Paris, New York and more). Last year, the brand celebrated its ten-year anniversary, a milestone marked by the opening of a new boutique in Copenhagen and a collaboration with A Magazine Curated by (each issue, one fashion designer is given free rein to translate their creative visions into print; previous guest-editors have included Yohji Yamamoto, Maison Martin Margiela and Simone Rocha).
A decade in, how is she feeling? “Looking back, it’s amazing to see that we succeeded in taking something based in craft and creativity in Copenhagen to an international scale,” she says. “I’ve learned so much over the past decade. It’s been complicated as well, with the stubbornness of staying true to your vision even when it’s super hard, and learning about the reality of what it means to run an independent brand, with all the beauty and the pressure that comes with that. I still feel like there’s so much to keep learning and exploring with the brand. And it’s not just about me anymore.”
Angelic, feminine romanticism mixed with everyday functionality – it’s a winning formula that has reshaped notions of Scandinavian style and made Bahnsen one of Denmark’s most celebrated designers at work today. “I have love for details, textiles and volume, but these clothes are something you need to live in,” she says. “It’s probably the most complicated part of my creative process, but it’s what constantly keeps this thing ticking.” Women’s inner emotional lives – both creatively and practically speaking – are also key to her designs. “I really want to make sure my pieces feel good when you have them on, and that you can express your own personality,” says Bahnsen. “I want to allow women to express their energy and attitude, and to be themselves.”
