The Ganni 10-Year Anniversary Show Was Nothing Short of a Celebration

With multiple U.S. store openings on the horizon, the fast-growing label closed out Copenhagen Fashion Week with models dancing in the rain.

The Ganni Spring 2020 finale. Photo: Yuliya Christensen/Getty Images

One of the final Copenhagen Fashion Week shows comes from one of the biggest brands Denmark has on its roster: Ganni. What started as a knitwear label at the beginning of the new millennium has, not slowly, but surely flourished into a full-blown industry staple; a name largely recognized for its cool-girl associations around the world from the U.S. to Europe to Japan.

In its home city, Ganni feels more like a family. Its 10-year anniversary show on Thursday evening, dubbed “Double Love,” started a whopping hour and a half late after a day of sporadic rainstorms, and the brand’s employees charmingly overlooked the tennis court venue from the windows of their HQ as hundreds of press and influencers poured in. With cold champagne and the promise of a musical guest, the exhaustion of the day was suddenly lifted.

Following last season, though, we all had to wonder how Ganni may or may not address the slight controversy that ensued after their show titled “Life on Earth.” The brand had a partnership with National Geographic that ended up rubbing many attendees the wrong way in what seemed to be a culturally ignorant misstep, but the drama dissipated in a matter of days. So, let’s just say Ganni didn’t feel the need to address anything directly this season — in fact, it did quite the opposite.

Ganni held an outdoor show centered around a live performance by Danish pop star MØ, already setting a much bubblier tone than last season’s worldly imagery. It also happened to mark a decade in business for Ganni. “I’ve been thinking a lot about the core of Ganni — not in a branding way, but about why we started, the heart of it. In the studio, they’ve been joking that this is my therapy collection,” Creative Director Ditte Reffstrup said in a press release. That core of the brand was evident in the clothing itself, which wasn’t much of a departure from everything we’ve come to love from Ganni over the years: animal prints, statement denim, quirky footwear and a sort of edgy yet widely accessible femininity that the label has become synonymous with.

As if they’d planned it, the skies finally opened as soon as the models came out for the show’s final walk, which turned into fashion’s elite dancing in their plastic ponchos, too. In Copenhagen and beyond, the brand has always had a feel-good, party-inclined reputation of late-running after-parties and a Ganni family that knows how to let loose, and this anniversary show was no exception. It’s difficult not to draw the conclusion that the brand took a more lighthearted route this season as a result of what became a political conversation last time around, but in its defense, there’s also plenty to celebrate.

Not only does Ganni have 10 years under its belt, it also has an expansive global network of stockists and multiple new U.S. store openings of its own on the horizon. This season felt more like a celebration than anything else; one of growth, of knowing its identity and trucking along on its merry way despite any past missteps. Success, after all, is never a straight line, but this collection reassured us all that the #GanniGirl still rings true a decade later — and she isn’t going anywhere.