Ganni’s New Collection Is Exactly What We All Need After The Last Year Of Lockdowns

The question Ganni creative director Ditte Reffstrup was asking before the brand’s last runway show, in January 2020, was: ‘What do you think the 20s are going to be like?’ If only we had known, huh?

But real life is inching back and with it real fashion weeks – with actual catwalk shows and street style moments – as seen in Copenhagen this week. Also emerging are the green shoots of hope and optimism. This season, as Ganni returned to presenting a catwalk show in the Danish capital, Reffstrup presented a SS22 collection that captured this new spirit.

The new collection, which Ganni gave the name ‘Higher Love’, was billed as a ‘an antidote to locking down and staying home’. It’s also a celebration of a design team that emerged from lockdown stronger and more united than ever. It’s them, says Ditte, who are the reason she is excited to get on her bike and go to work every morning.

What is also amping her up is Ganni’s return to the catwalk. ‘It has been so exciting to have a show again,’ she said backstage afterwards. ‘The energy you get with a physical show is unbeatable’. The collection was presented on CopenHill, an artificial ski slope and hiking trail built on Denmark’s largest waste-to-energy plant, a move that chimes with Ganni’s ongoing commitment to sustainability (this season, swimwear is recycled; innovative materials like VEGEA and plant-based materials like hemp are also used).

The clothes also capture the ‘see and be seen’ spirit that’s returning to our wardrobes. Sleek tailoring comes in Ganni’s deliberately ‘off’ palette, second-skin dresses are delightfully unapologetic (a bodycon kickback against the sorry, sloppy silhouettes of lockdown), crochetknits are an instant mood boost. The brand’s signature Peter Pan collars are this time longer and sharper. As ever, the collection shows of Ganni’s simultaneous command of ease and impact, something that feels even more resonant now.

What’s Reffstrup got her eye on then? ‘It’s always difficult to pick just one favourite piece from the collection because I love everything,’ she said, adding that ‘we should never do anything that we don’t want to wear ourselves’ is the in-house motto. ‘But if I was to choose just one it would be the metallic knitwear dress which looked stunning in the show’.

‘For us fashion is all about still having fun, expressing yourself, feeling good about yourself – of course in a responsible way!’ she told us. ‘For us it’s about saying ‘yes’ to yourself, saying ‘yes’ to life, just embracing who you are and being confident in your own skin’. What the rest of the 2020s will look like is anyone’s guess – but that sounds like a great place to start.