Madsen and Clante are different in age but similarly versatile in their approaches to dressing, which is informing the brand’s new product. “In the studio, we will be in jeans and T-shirts and trainers and often baseball caps. But also both of us really enjoy dressing up in sassy dresses and extremely high heels,” Madsen tells me. “We have a specific customer, but I believe that she is a little bit like us in that way, she can be any age, and she dresses for different occasions.”
Pieces are sampled in the studio, and Madsen has tapped old suppliers across Europe, including Denmark and Italy, to make the collections if they sell.
“Someone told us to choose one direction. We were like, ‘That makes sense, but no,’” Clante says. “We’re following our guts.”
“We hope that when this is met by buyers, they will see the collection [working] in many different ways,” Madsen adds. “That’s our goal.”
While Madsen and Clante are keen for a few stockists, they’re also building a made-to-order occasionwear business, to work with clients directly and make special pieces in Copenhagen, to supplement revenue from wholesale. “I know that the market is very different from when I started the first time around — retail is very different. There’s a lot more brands now,” Madsen says.
The upcoming collection will be a graduation of the presentation collection, with some of the pieces developed based on existing silhouettes that people enjoyed from AW25. Madsen and Clante also explored upcycling archival pieces from the brand in last season’s collection, like shearling coats patched together, and got a “great response”, encouraging them to keep experimenting with splicing pieces from the archive.
As for the show, it’s going to be “very simple”, Madsen says, but with some surprises. “We might do things differently next time, but for this first show, it’s going to be a lot about the garments and how the models move.”
“They’re going to fill out the space,” Clante adds. “We will have some set design, but it’s not our main focus. Our focus is the characters on the runway.”
Looking ahead, Madsen and Clante have a simple long-term ambition for Anne Sofie Madsen. “We want to have fun,” they both answer when asked about their long-term goal. “Both those answers came straight from the heart,” Madsen says. “Hopefully, we can have fun, live a good life, earn money and grow slowly and mindfully.”
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