He might have been pipped to the post for the Wessel & Vett Prize for emerging fashion talent, but Nicklas Skovgaard hasn’t let that stop him. On the contrary, he’s feeling more inspired than ever. We meet him in his Copenhagen studio to hear more
Nicklas Skovgaard is a breath of fresh air to fashion design. The depth of referencing, the multi-layered interpretations, the purposeful frictions between fabrications and finish. For him, a polished end product isn’t the all-important end goal, rather it’s creating a commentary within the lines of fashion from his own perspective. A womenswear designer who not only handweaves his own fabric, but whose mood board includes everything from snapshots of Madonna on her Confessions tour, to northern renaissance portraits of landed gentry and young women in little woollen bonnets.
“This idea of a mix of stuff which is really unexpected and really a reflection of me as a person,” he explains. Having gained notoriety within industry circles for his DIY shoots of his collections on friends and muses, along with unexpected and exaggerated silhouettes cut within fabrics that have been ruched, sculpted, fanned and gathered. Think bubble skirts and huge ruffs, drawstrings cinching metres of fabric and drop hemlines galore. While it would be easy to label it all a bit classical, it still feels thoroughly modern. Having started the eponymous brand just two years ago, Skovgaard initially spent his early working career in interior design before pursuing fashion.
“I think design has always been a part of me. I would see my mother and her outfits every day and she has always been experimenting with her style,” he says. “I think it really all started out by looking at her dressing and slowly I started sewing clothes for myself.” Growing up on the tiny Danish island of Thurø, with his mother as his early inspiration, she was also the one who fostered his early interest in fabric, sending him to a seamstress as a teenager in order to learn to sew.
Island living can be idyllic in many ways, but in others it can feel detached and sometimes hostile to new and outside influence. Skovgaard found himself dressing apart from his peers, wishing to do his own thing and express himself in a different way.“When you come from smaller places, it is harder to be who you are and do what you want to do,” he recalls.
Seeking external inspiration where he could, he remembers excitedly downloading videos of the Chanel shows at Paris fashion week on his iPod and dreaming of these near-mythological worlds of fantasy from the schoolyard. “For me when I design now it’s not really about the clothes, it is really about me creating this sort of dream that I would feel when I was looking at those Chanel shows. It goes beyond just the clothes,” he says.
After leaving Thurø for the capital at 18, Skovgaard determined he wanted to focus more on design, deciding to spend a number of years in the interiors and design industry. After eight years and finding himself craving the time to reflect on himself, the direction his life was going and what he wanted to do, he quit his job, rented a small studio and bought a loom. Initially assuming he would do it as a bit of a side-hustle until he found a new job, soon enough more and more people were taking an interest in his creations. “I just started weaving and creating these small textiles and little pieces of clothes and it just naturally grew into the brand,” says Skovgaard.
“When I look at when I started out, it has really been going in a lot of directions. It has been very intuitive, working with my hands, working from my idea of clothes. I really want to put my personal perspective into the fashion industry,” he says. There is a fundamental bedrock of nostalgia in the work of Nicklas, describing his design characteristics as a subconscious approach of creating his own past visions as a child of the idea of what a grown-up woman would wear to express herself in.
There has been a sea-change in the Copenhagen fashion scene, with the focus and spotlight on emerging brands which used to sit unmoving on the more established houses. One such support for emerging young brands has been the Wessel & Vett Prize, the award created by the Wessel & Vett Foundation in 2012 to celebrate entrepreneurship and creativity with Danish design talent. Nominated alongside Birrot, Sophia Khaled and Iso.Poetism by Tobias Birk Nielsen, it was Nielsen who nabbed the top prize, but the award was still a moment of triumph for Skovgaard too – a means to recognise his exceptional talent before the host of judges, including Sophie Bille Brahe, Nicolaj Reffstrup of Ganni, Jonathan Hirschfield of Eytys and CEO of CPHFW, Cecilie Thorsmark. Like many rejections in life, which can often act as a sounding pistol for some, Skovgaard discovered that not being awarded the top spot has been galvanising for him.
Photo: Courtesy of Nicklas Skovgaard
“For me, not winning has made me really think about where do I dream to end up. I think it will also make my brand even stronger. Right now, I am in the process of really making sure where I want to go myself, and not being driven by others. Like many people, I can be really affected by others’ opinions and thoughts – from not winning it has been back to just my thoughts and being able to take in all that I experienced and give me a new strength to my direction, drive and desires in my own work, and defining my own dreams,” he explains.
In today’s age, young designers are more frequently following their own distinctive dream, not the one of others before them – as Skovgaard points out, this is also the only way that we can change the industry from the bad practices of the past and move it forward to a more collaborative and kind future.
Skovgaard and his approach to running his own business is also very reflective of where the mindset of our future tastemakers lies. Not so much about global retail domination and aiming for hundreds of stockists, dozens of own stores or huge turnover that just results in creating more ‘stuff.’ Instead, Skovgaard is one of the many mindful brands wishing to design for the appreciative few and hold on to his handmade approach rather than spewing out thousands of pieces to stockists around the world. Sure, he might not become a millionaire, but putting personal desires before profiteering is not only refreshing, but also businessy savvy with this idea that effective business models in fashion can shift and adapt.
“I don’t have this ambition of having 200 retailers – I want to be able to create what I am creating today and if I want to stay in this industry for me I need to do it organically,” says the designer. Skovgaard’s vision for his brand is refreshing. One that is allowed to be strange, to be nostalgic, to be unexpected but also one that has cultivated a deep fascination with stylists and private clients alike.
In Skovgaard’s studio, discussing this blue sky thinking, hangs a handwoven cream column dress fashioned with delicate, fuzzy spaghetti straps. From afar it appears covered in sparkling paillettes, but take a closer look and you notice the tiny, golden bells sewn into the fabric all over. “It’s the Christmas dress!” smiles Skovgaard, as he shakes the dress gently and the sounds tinkle through the studio. A dress equal parts modern, fantastical and magic – a bit like Skovgaard himself.