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Today at Copenhagen Fashion Week, Remain Birger Christensen will present its second show since its reboot under creative director Martin Asbjørn, the beloved Copenhagen designer who shuttered his eponymous label in 2022.
Last season’s start was strong, with the label picking up 15 new retailers off of Asbjørn’s debut collection. Today’s show will cement the new vision for Remain, which owner Birger Christensen Collective is now hoping to scale, following the success of its partywear label Rotate. With the absence of major Scandi label Ganni at CPHFW this season, it could be the perfect time to gain ground.
“It’s always more nerve-wracking to do [show] number two,” says Asbjørn, who ran his eponymous label for eight years, before pulling the plug in 2022 due to the challenging economic climate. “After the first show, I was so excited, which has never happened to me before. At my own brand, I always felt that certain things could have been better. This [Remain] show came to life the way I wanted it to,” he says. “The response was really positive. But, even if the reviews hadn’t been good, I’d still be excited to continue.”
Known for leather and tailoring, Remain launched in 2019 as a timeless “affordable luxury” label, creating pieces that “remain in your wardrobe, but with a design edge”, Birger Christensen Collective CEO Denise Christensen describes. “Remain is focused on tailoring and leather, and they were my best selling categories at my brand, so I knew it was a good fit,” says Asbjørn, who soft-launched his vision for Remain with a pre-fall 2024 collection in January this year. While Rotate is a label for the dancefloor, Remain is a more classic, casual offering, designed to take a working woman through her day. Pieces retail from €150 for a T-shirt to €1,350 for a coat.
Christensen served as creative director of Remain until appointing Asbjørn, and, for the first couple of seasons, worked on just five looks per season, in three colourways. Soon, she realised she needed to push further. “Remain got bigger and bigger, and I needed to find someone to take over, to secure and strengthen the business,” she says. She appointed Asbjørn in late 2023, after meeting him through a colleague. “As soon as I saw Martin’s portfolio and his knowledge of detail and craftsmanship, I knew he was right for Remain. I had the ideas but wasn’t educated in these techniques, so it’s really exciting.”
