By
Natalia Spotts
Photography by
Tyler Kohlhoff

Styling by Lana Jay Lackey. Hair by Blake Erik at Jed Root. Makeup by Tomohiro Murama. Model: Tanya Katysheva at Next Models. Photographer’s assistant: Jared Christiansen. Stylist’s assistant: Allison Beinart.

ANNE SOFIE MADSEN


Fashion is an extraordinary medium for Anne Sofie Madsen. Her experiences training under John Galliano and working with Alexander McQueen taught the Danish designer how to see fashion as “a very personal expression,” even if it means showing a more fragile and vulnerable side to herself. Although Madsen spent most of her time studying animation and storyboarding at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, fashion caught her attention along the way, even as she still jokingly refers to her current field as “the dark side.” Just one year after her graduation in 2010, she launched her own practice. Sourced in Copenhagen, her namesake label is “built on contrasts and ambivalence” and challenges the boundaries for everyday wear.

Left: Boots, worn throughout, by Maison Margiela.

The ideal customer is equally contradicted, “both inviting and out of reach, streetwise and ladylike, boyish and feminine at the same time,” Madsen explains. She says she designs for “real women in a real world and not for princesses in a fairytale,” but also aims to bring a sense of “magic back into reality” for the modern woman. This philosophy has always been directly expounded in Madsen’s work, but is especially obvious in her Resort 2016 collection, seen here, as she is inspired to shed light on an act that is normally a quiet and intimate exercise.

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According to Madsen, getting undressed may be the most important part of fashion. For her Resort 2016 collection, the designer first drew inspiration from a photo of an Eighties strip club. With its empty interior pictured in bright daylight, all the intimacies of the night before are exposed. She claims that “there is something interesting about the fact that the viewer is aware of the meaning of the place without actually seeing it.” This led her to think of a flasher’s trench coat, “an object that, in a way, is supposed to be the exact opposite.” Since there was no performance, Madsen decided to create her own, photographing and sketching friends and members of her team wearing a trench coat while “undressing in different ways.”

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The idea of “undressing in public” translates seamlessly into the collection as it reinvents the structured trench into a contemporary piece that is oversized yet wearable. Using a completely neutral palette, the collection is a natural refresh from her previous seasons, while still not deviating from her philosophy of contrasting extremes. At the same time, intimate cuts are paired with asymmetrical drapery while feminine details coexist alongside more masculine silhouettes. “I wanted to see how it would look when the act of undressing was made into ordinary, everyday garments,” Madsen explains. “I am always searching for the border between the primitive and civilized, between nature and culture. I suppose it reflects our relationship towards the body and sexuality.”

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Madsen loves that the pieces she creates “will end up being a part of people’s lives and be a part of their story, whether it’s the pictures on their phones, at a weekend party, or a broken heart.” The label’s dichotomous approach to fashion invokes a curiosity in what future collections are yet to come from the young designer.

For more information, please visit AnneSofieMadsen.com.

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By
Natalia Spotts
Photography by
Tyler Kohlhoff

Styling by Lana Jay Lackey. Hair by Blake Erik at Jed Root. Makeup by Tomohiro Murama. Model: Tanya Katysheva at Next Models. Photographer’s assistant: Jared Christiansen. Stylist’s assistant: Allison Beinart.

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