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There’s a particular moment at Copenhagen Fashion Week when the pace slows just enough for you to actually feel the clothes. It happens somewhere between the front-row shuffle, the second resee, and the quiet realization that you’re leaning forward—not to take a photo, but to catch a detail. This season, that detail was romance. Not announced, not dramatized, but threaded gently through the collections, waiting to be noticed.
By the end of Copenhagen Fashion Week, it was hard to ignore the feeling that romance—real romance, not the saccharine kind—had quietly slipped back onto the runway. Not in grand, corseted gestures or period-costume fantasy, but in details so intimate you had to be close enough to notice them: a flash of lace at the ankle, a bodice that curved instead of clung, a silhouette that flirted with softness without surrendering its edge.
This isn’t happening in a vacuum. Over the past few couture and ready-to-wear seasons, luxury houses have been inching back toward emotion—handiwork you want to lean in toward, fabrics that reward touch, shapes that suggest the body rather than armor it. What felt different in Copenhagen for fall/winter 2026 was how naturally those romantic cues translated into something wearable, lived-in, and quietly modern.
Lace was everywhere, but never precious. It appeared as trim rather than centerpiece, layered into scarves, panels, tights—more whisper than proclamation. Take the collections of Caro Editions, The Garment, or Herskind. Copenhagen designers are making the case that lace is for the everyday woman—stirrup, brushed wool lace tights (fashioned with leather jackets and pumps) and fashioned with jeans and bow-adorned puff-shoulder tops. If you’re a bit more understated, perhaps a mantilla-style lace handkerchief fastened around your neck is more your speed?
Up close, it felt intentional, even pragmatic, grounding romance in texture rather than nostalgia. Lace here wasn’t about fragility; it was about intimacy. The kind of detail you notice only if you’re paying attention, sitting close enough to see how it moves when the model turns, or how it softens a look without undoing it.
Lace on the Runway
(Image credit: Launchmetrics/Spotlight. Pictured: Caro Editions Fall Winter 2026.)
(Image credit: Launchmetrics/Spotlight. Pictured: Herskind Fall Winter 2026.)
(Image credit: Launchmetrics/Spotlight. Pictured: The Garment Fall Winter 2026.)
Then there were the peplum bodices, a silhouette that could have gone dangerously retro (hello, 2016!) but instead felt refreshingly sharp. Shaped at the waist, flaring just enough to create rhythm, the peplum resurgence reframed femininity as structure with feeling. Not girlish, not rigid—just confident in its own curves. Take OpéraSport, Stine Goya, and Herskind, for example. While you might balk at the trend at first, the softer, sculpted peplum’s return wasn’t about trend revival so much as proportion: an acknowledgment that tailoring can still be romantic, and romance doesn’t have to be loose or overly ornate.
Peplums on the Runway
(Image credit: Launchmetrics/Spotlight. Pictured: OpéraSPORT Fall Winter 2026.)
(Image credit: Launchmetrics/Spotlight. Pictured: Herskind Fall Winter 2026.)
(Image credit: Courtesy of Stine Goya.)
If lace was romance in whisper form, organza and chiffon were its most fleeting expression. Sheer without being showy, organza skirts and tops floated through the collections as layers rather than statements. The fabric’s transparency felt intentional, not performative, offering softness without fragility. Just take look at Anne Sofie Madsen, Forza Collective, and MKDT Studio.
What made organza feel right for this moment was its restraint. Volume was controlled, edges were clean, and the emphasis was on movement rather than drama. As models walked, the fabric caught air just long enough to register—then settled back into place. It was romance at its most modern: light, precise, and entirely unforced.
Airy Fabrics on the Runway
(Image credit: Launchmetrics/Spotlight. Pictured: Anne Sofie Madsen Fall Winter 2026.)
(Image credit: Launchmetrics/Spotlight. Pictured: MKDT Studio Fall Winter 2026.)
(Image credit: Launchmetrics/Spotlight. Pictured: Forza Collective Fall Winter 2026.)
What struck me most, moving from show to show, resee to resee, was how tactile everything felt. Clothes designed to be experienced up close, not flattened into content. You could sense the designers thinking about how fabric brushes skin, how garments behave in real movement, how emotion lives in construction.
If recent seasons were about protection—layers, utility, restraint—Copenhagen’s fall/winter 2026 offering suggested a shift toward openness. Romance is back, yes, but it’s smarter now. Less about fantasy, more about feeling. Honestly? It’s exactly what fashion needed.
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