For its Copenhagen Fashion Week debut, buzzy brand Bonnetje upcycles men’s suits into quirky, feminine tailored looks that models wore whilst rushing to catch an imagined flight
Bonnetje means business. Business suits, that is. Presenting at Copenhagen Fashion Week for the very first time, the buzzy Danish brand creates delightfully off-kilter, feminine silhouettes out of men’s suiting. “We just started collecting clothes from friends and we had boxes of weird clothes from our grandparents and we started to deconstruct everything and put it together,” says Yoko Maja Hansen, who co-founded the brand with Anna Myntekær in 2021. “It’s a lot of work in a suit – it’s so sad if it just goes in the garbage,” adds Myntekær. “It’s also about telling the story of how some tailor has been working for hours on this suit.”It wasn’t lost on the duo that the notion of turning garments imbued with a traditional sense of masculinity into something quite feminine made for a charming story. And thus, Bonnetje, which means ‘receipt’ in Dutch (both girls studied at Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam) was born.
For its Copenhagen debut, Bonnetje explores the very rat-race-coded status of “rush” (a fitting theme for fashion week if there ever was one), placing models smack dab in that singularly stressful situation of clamouring to catch a flight. “We were really thinking of how we wear our clothes when we’re in a hurry,” says Hansen. “How we wrap it around us and how we carry it.” Garments become accessories, thrown over the shoulder or simply carried. Also on the arms of the models: handbags made in collaboration with beloved Danish brand Venczel.
As for the clothes actually worn, they hardly convey “rush” but rather a certain meticulous tailoring (no surprise given the designers’ backgrounds; Hansen honed her skills at Maison Margiela under John Galliano whilst Myntekær worked for a couturier in Paris before returning home to take up post at Cecilie Bahnsen). Waiting in line at the ticket counter were body-hugging shirts, wrapped just so, asymmetric shirts that cut off-the-shoulder and slick, floor-sweeping dresses. “We both had a lot of energy that we needed to somehow get out,” says Myntekær on the launch of the brand. “Creative energy that wasn’t explored.”
See the full Bonnetje SS25 collection below.
