Astrid Andersen’s STEL Turns Copenhagen Fashion Week Into a Dialogue, Not a Display
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By PAGE Editor
At Copenhagen Fashion Week, the most resonant moments aren’t always confined to the runway. Sometimes, they unfold in conversation—shared history, lived experience, and cultural alignment giving clothing its deeper meaning. On Wednesday, January 28, 2026, STEL, the fashion and lifestyle brand by Danish designer Astrid Andersen, leaned fully into that philosophy with the debut of Collection 09 inside one of Copenhagen’s oldest cinemas, the Grand Teatret.
Rather than positioning the season as a traditional presentation, Andersen framed Collection 09 as an exchange. Hosted as a panel conversation with longtime friend and collaborator A$AP Nast alongside professional skater Beatrice Domond, the format reflected the designer’s desire to slow fashion down—to speak, contextualize, and connect. “The starting point for Autumn/Winter ’26 was really expanding on my concept of tailoring you can skate in,” Andersen explained. “How can we investigate that as a mindset as well as a practical element when resolving the clothes?”
That idea—tailoring built for movement rather than restriction—has become a defining thread of STEL. Designed for the rhythm of real life, where work blurs into leisure and movement never pauses, Collection 09 balances refinement with ease. Andersen’s background in menswear remains foundational; comfort and functionality are non-negotiable, filtered through a modern, street-informed lens.
Copenhagen Fashion Week, for Andersen, is not just a platform but part of her personal and creative DNA. “Copenhagen Fashion Week has been part of what I do even from when I was doing Astrid Andersen menswear ten years ago,” she said. “When I founded STEL and knew I wanted to go in a new direction, it was really important for me to come here. It’s home—it’s such a strong part of who I am as a designer.”
That sense of home is also what allows STEL to exist outside rigid industry expectations. “What I love about Copenhagen Fashion Week is that we get to show up in the format that suits us,” Andersen noted. “We don’t have to conform. That’s really important for me with STEL. We’ll do a runway show, but this season we also wanted to do something like this—talk more, connect more about the ideas behind what I do, and even why I do them.”
Collection 09 embodies that freedom. Shot on Beatrice Domond, the collection returns STEL to its roots with tailoring you can skate in—literally and philosophically. Key pieces include tailored khaki cargo trousers engineered with split side seams and flexible fits, alongside a bomber-style blazer reimagined in a silk-tailored silhouette that modernizes the casual suit. Denim continues to evolve within the brand’s vocabulary, introduced this season through a padded denim bomber that expands STEL’s material exploration.
Layered mohair knitwear and sculpted dark denims are paired with tank tops, signature STEL culottes, and shirting elements inspired by traditional menswear. Thoughtful details—designed cuffs, pleats, and layered constructions—extend into wrap skirts, reinforcing the collection’s focus on structure, versatility, and lived-in elegance.
“Designed for real bodies and real life, this collection reflects STEL’s belief that clothing should support women through movement, change, and everyday reality,” Andersen said. “I design clothing that moves with women through different phases of life—with clarity, comfort, and confidence—without ever asking them to become someone else.”
The panel format itself underscored that philosophy. “You can go to other fashion weeks for pure runway shows or couture,” Andersen reflected, “but here it’s really about incorporating authentic moments like this into a presentation. I hope Copenhagen Fashion Week always stays true to that superpower.”
STEL’s evolution feels deeply considered. Andersen, a Royal College of Art graduate and former Fashion East and NEWGEN MEN designer, built her early career on boundary-blurring menswear that fused sportswear silhouettes with tailoring. After co-signs from cultural figures including A$AP Rocky and M.I.A., she debuted her first full women’s collection in 2017 before returning to Denmark to redefine her creative output with STEL, first presented in 2024. Today, the brand is firmly embedded within the Copenhagen Fashion Week ecosystem and nominated for the Wessel & Vett Fashion Prize.
Asked about her fondest CPHFW memory, Andersen smiled. “There’s this cake bakery called La Glace—over a hundred years old—and they once transformed one of my designs into this massive cake with NBA rings and roses. It was the maddest thing,” she recalled. “But I’ll always remember it because it felt like old school Copenhagen meeting my work.”
Collection 09 launches in August for Autumn/Winter 2026 and will be stocked at END, Selfridges, Storm Copenhagen, and via Stelstores.com. In an industry driven by immediacy, STEL’s latest offering is a reminder that fashion’s most enduring impact comes from alignment—between movement and meaning, structure and freedom, and clothing designed not to perform, but to live.
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