“It was so inspiring to be raised by a woman so fearless”: The creative force of mother-daughter duo Sophia and Louise Roe

On a warm morning in Copenhagen, Sophia Roe is busy setting up a photoshoot together with her mother, Louise Roe, in a small space in the city’s centre. No stranger to such scenarios, on this occasion the 27-year-old content creator, fashion designer and editor isn’t fussing with the minimalistic garments that have come to define her, but rather, the mother-daughter duo’s debut collection of homewares. “It’s such an exciting moment,” says Sophia. She wears a plain white T-shirt, her shoulder-length hair neatly arranged in a high ponytail. “We’ve been waiting for this for some time.”

They’re in The Roe Studio, a show-room-cum-studio space where Louise, a renowned designer of furniture and homewares, often welcomes photographers to shoot her latest pieces. “It allows us to be creative and develop a brand universe just the way we want to,” she says as she ushers me in, dressed in an elegant, minimalistic white shirt with her silver hair gently draped over her shoulders.

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The space is located a short walk from Louise’s public gallery and showroom: a spacious light-filled outpost where the 54-year-old has welcomed guests to explore her collections since 2010. Her designs range from elegant everyday ceramics to striking hand-cast metal vases defined by bold shapes. One of her latest pieces, a long and sculptural dining table crafted in Sweden from oak wood, gracefully stretches across the room. Just recently, Louise fitted the gallery with an in-house cafe – The Roe Bar – which has proved a popular destination among visitors and locals alike for its impeccable interiors and seasonal menu of tasty dishes prepared on-site. “We were among the first in town to provide a combined cafe and shop,” says Louise with a sense of pride, referencing the recent trend of blending retail with a food offering. “I’m happy with how the place turned out.”

On the day of their homewares shoot, Sophia has just returned from a short trip to Paris, where she spent her time attending haute couture shows – including Dior, Chanel, Fendi and Valentino – and setting up meetings with clients. “I live a busy life,” she says with a smile. “It’s always good to be home.”

Sophia grew up with her three brothers in Frederiksberg, a district in central Copenhagen, raised by a mother who always gave her the freedom to fully explore her passions and experiment with different crafts. “I grew up in a home with a lot of space to be me and to explore me,” she says. “We were always encouraged to find ourselves and our parents were supportive of each of our passions.”

Louise recalls this time in her daughter’s life like it was yesterday: the days Sophia spent hours locked in her room playing with her camera and setting up mock photoshoots with her collection of dolls, which she dressed up her way. “Giving my children the freedom to do and be what they want is something I learnt from my mother,” says Louise. When she applied for design school at 22, Louise’s mother was staunchly behind her. After graduating, she joined a Copenhagen-based agency that dealt with Italian furniture brands, where she was captured by the world of interiors. Today, 13 years after she started her brand, Louise still hand sketches and designs every single piece that goes into production, transporting her taste for elevated interiors and a refined colour palette to everyday home objects. “I always had it in me that I needed to experiment with my designs,” she says.

In her adolescence, Sophia would return home from school to find her mother busy in her office, laying the foundations for her brand. “Every time it felt like her office was getting bigger and bigger,” says Sophia. After some years living in the Frederiksberg apartment, the family relocated to a bigger home in the residential district of Gentofte, north of the city, where Louise lives today. “It was so inspiring to be raised by a woman so fearless to go after what she loves,” Sophia adds.

Still fuelled by her mother’s relentless drive to pursue her passions, much of Sophia’s work today revolves around running the fashion label she founded in 2020. Named The Garment, the brand specialises in a timeless wardrobe crafted around modern silhouettes and a monochrome palette. “Since I was a kid I knew I wanted to work with fashion,” she says. “I think entrepreneurship suited me perfectly because I knew exactly what to go after.”

It all began years ago with a private Instagram profile, where she meticulously curated a minimalist aesthetic that had captivated her since childhood. Back then, as a kid, she'd enjoy piecing together a multitude of cut-outs from her favourite fashion magazines to forge intricate collages. “I’ve always been fascinated by how you can place different pictures and elements together in a way that creates a whole aesthetic and a story,” she says. “So Instagram offered the perfect platform to start from.” Her relentless passion and dedication brought her from the world of online content creation to the realm of fashion and several partnerships with major houses, including Saint Laurent, Dior and Chanel, and trips to all corners of the world. Sophia believes travelling has been crucial for her understanding of the sector, allowing her to find her place within it. “I collect so much inspiration on every trip I go on,” she says.

With sunshine flooding The Roe Studio, Sophia is attentively arranging a careful selection of fabrics with contrasting textures for the photoshoot. The idea is for the photography to reflect the homeware collection’s combination of materials, which range from mouth-blown glass to black and white porcelain, and create imagery that inspires different ways of styling the dinnerware. “We are trying a more artistic approach to the photography,” Sophia says. “We don’t want to simply show products over a white background.” Behind the camera is her boyfriend, renowned photographer Philip Messmann, whose work regularly appears on the pages of major international titles, including this one. “It’s a real family shoot,” says Sophia.

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Much of the process that went into designing the new line of dinnerware unfolded over casual conversations via texts or emails, or at the dinner table. “It all went very smoothly,” says Sophia. “My mother gets my style and I get hers.” The collaborative work often followed a similar trajectory: Sophia would share inspiring imagery, mood boards, and ideas on how she envisioned her designs and her mother would reciprocate, contributing her decades-long experience. “When you work within design your creativity will want you to do everything,” says Louise. “It’s about finding a balance between pushing boundaries and recognising what you can and can’t do with every material.” When asked if, at any time during the process, there were any major disagreements and challenges, the two reply in unison: “Not once.”

The collection is representative of the very moments that bring them together as a family: gatherings at the dinner table. With both mother and daughter conducting extremely busy lives often on the go, a weekday lunch squeezed in between meetings or a relaxing Sunday roast in their north Copenhagen family home have become bedrocks of their relationship. “We get together over food and always have,” says Louise. “The collection is a symbol of us being close as a family and spending time with one another.”

Working on the collection also brought back memories of the times the mother and daughter spent in cafes and restaurants around Copenhagen and abroad – where Sophia would often share her thoughts on the type of cutlery, plates and glassware the tables were set with. “Sophia has always been such an observant person,” says Louise. “She’s been collecting ideas on what her ideal tableware would look like since she was a child.”

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For their Vogue Scandinavia photoshoot, which takes place at the family home in Gentofte, the mother and daughter are donning a careful selection of garments hand-picked by Sophia herself. These range from designs by Valentino and Prada to pieces from Sophia’s very own collections and the works of emerging Danish designers. “I chose many of the brands I often work with and admire the most,” says Sophia.

In the wake of their recently launched collection, Louise and Sophia are already thinking ahead: figuring out the next steps of the collaboration, sharing ideas on which pieces to add, which materials to experiment with and how to build on this exciting moment in their careers. “I feel very humbled to be able to say that my mother and I are exactly where we want to be with our careers at the moment,” says Sophia. “We’re doing exactly what we love.”