The Munthe Milestone: A lookback at the Danish brand's colourful and uncompromising 30 year journey

Munthe’s latest collection sprouted from a single seed, literally. “A couple of years ago, I went to this flea market and there was a woman selling flower seeds that she had produced and harvested in her own garden,” says Naja Munthe, the founder, owner and creative director of the beloved Danish brand. “I thought, ‘That’s so nice’, and it sort of stuck to the inspiration board in my head.”

When it came time to conceptualise the spring/summer '25 collection, Munthe went to a plant store and picked up some organic seeds. Then, in a small windowsill greenhouse, she grew some flowers, which she harvested and pressed. Next, she spread the flattened blooms onto a piece of paper to create her very own signature print. “I made sure not to sneeze,” she says, miming with her hands a mess of delicate pressed flowers flying everywhere. Just a couple weeks ago, at Copenhagen Fashion Week, that print came down the runway to a crowd of 600, including Munthe’s 16- and 19-year-old sons (easily spotted by their blond curly hair – just like their mum’s). “I think that’s what I wanted to show with this collection – you can start with something so small and it’s so easily destroyed,” says the 56-year-old designer. “But if you take care of it and you do good and you feed it, it can become something very big and beautiful.”

It’s an apt metaphor for the brand itself, which is celebrating its 30th year. With tireless care, doing good and perhaps a bit of luck, Munthe has grown her namesake label into a Danish institution, boasting a turnover in the nine digits (in Danish kroner) and a generation-spanning fanbase spread all over the globe.

When Munthe, straight out of design school and living in Copenhagen, first got things going in 1994, she admittedly didn’t have such wild ambitions. Founded with Karen Simonsen, a fellow grad of Design School Kolding, the brand, then called Munthe plus Simonsen, was a cool and casual embodiment of what the two women yearned to wear themselves. In 2009, Munthe became creative director and five years later, she bought out her partner and changed the brand’s name to simply Munthe. She’s been the sole owner ever since, weathering economic ups and downs and the pandemic without any outside investment.

Getting a brand off the ground in the mid-1990s was a bit different. “I’m almost embarrassed to say it, but you know it was before the internet,” says Munthe, noting that back then, the most valuable piece of tech was the fax machine. Thinking globally wasn’t really a thing, especially for a Danish brand. There was no local scene, no fashion week. No Ganni, no Malene Birger. Most of the noteworthy names at the time – Punk Royale, Friis & Company – have since shuttered. Munthe was essentially entering uncharted territory.

Munthe didn’t have to wait long for her big break. To present the brand’s very first collection, she staged a fashion show at the Statens Museum for Kunst (The National Gallery of Denmark). She opted for an arbitrary date in September for her big debut. “We had a lot of canapés and Champagne and just invited tons of people and got drunk,” says Munthe. “It was very, very fun.” The tightly edited collection was unapologetically feminine, boho and colourful (come to think of it, three words that describe the prevailing Danish aesthetic). The central print was leaves – a sentiment sweetly echoed three decades later by the aforementioned flower print.

But it wasn’t just the clothes that captured the attention of the local fashion crowd, it was also the casting. One model in particular: Helena Christensen. Having already solidified her spot as an original supermodel, Christensen was a bona fide international celebrity and having her walk a Danish show was a major moment well before viral show moments were the norm (heck, well before going viral was even possible). “People’s jaws just dropped, because you were not used to seeing her in Denmark,” Munthe says, noting it was only Christensen’s “first or second” Copenhagen catwalk. “It was a huge success.”

Though there were no camera phones to capture Christensen’s Munthe moment, its effect reverberated far beyond Copenhagen. A couple of months later, Munthe was in Paris showcasing the collection at a fashion fair, a large sign featuring an image of Christensen in tow. “This older lady came by and she was very interested in us. She was a very funny lady and she looked really odd,” says Munthe. “She was so nice, and we talked a lot about the company and the vision.” The woman, who mentioned that she wrote for a newspaper, asked Munthe if she could have a copy of the picture of Christensen. There were no copies, so Munthe gave her the whole sign. The funny woman, who left Munthe’s booth carrying the cardboard image under her arm, was renowned British journalist Suzy Menkes. A couple of weeks later the image appeared in The New York Times. “That was the first moment where I was like, ‘Wow, this is really something’,” says Munthe.

Like many would-be designers, Munthe’s creative streak started young. “I always had this very creative source in me,” she says. “My mum was clever enough to just let me try all kinds of different things – she never said, ‘You have to do this’ or, ‘Now you have to do your homework’,” says Munthe, noting, ironically, that her mother was a school teacher. “One day she put a sewing machine in front of me and I was like, ‘This is what I’m going to do’.” Soon Munthe was cutting up tablecloths to make shorts and sewing up covers for her toy horses. Meanwhile her grandmother, a tailor, instilled a love of fabric in Munthe from a young age.

But unlike many would-be designers, Munthe simultaneously had an instinct for business. “When I was five years old, I would take a shopping bag and go to different stores and steal things,” she says. “Then I would sit outside on the street with the box I’d picked up from the supermarket and I would sell.” Sure, her premise was a bit dodgy, but the blocks for building a successful brand – low cost of goods sold, solid markup – were there. “I think that combination of being very creative and, on the other hand, thinking business-wise is one of my greatest skills and probably the reason I’m still here after 30 years and doing better than ever,” says Munthe.

Aesthetically, Munthe is an extension of the woman from whom it takes its name: daringly feminine (puff-sleeved blouses and frocks, sometimes pleats and frills) but with an undercurrent of no-fuss strength (the brand certainly knows its way around a suit). At moments expressive (those unmissable organic prints), elsewhere practical (denim, Denmark-ready outerwear). Clothes for complex women, living full lives. The materials, which have been sustainability-focused since the start, are a reflection of the designer, too; she’s been a member of Greenpeace for over 35 years, since before she enrolled in design school. “At the time they were in boats, linking themselves to oil platforms in the ocean,” says Munthe. “For me it’s so natural to take care of the environment.” Many of the brand’s pieces are made from a minimum of 50 per cent recycled or low impact material. Meanwhile, at Munthe HQ, there’s green electricity, electric cars, recycling and organic food and beverages (with the exception of the Coca-Cola and the Champagne).

For our Vogue Scandinavia shoot, Munthe showcases that sprung-from-a-seed spring/summer '25 collection in a deeply personal location: her summerhouse in Tisvildeleje. “I saw it for sale and I thought it just needed a little painting and it would be fine,” she says of the house, which she purchased in 2017. “Of course I ended up taking the whole house down and designing and building a new one from scratch.” The result is a sleek wood and concrete-heavy retreat from city life, a stark contrast from the print-happy aesthetic of Munthe the brand, and this collection in particular. “I think it creates the silence that the collection needs,” says Munthe. Sometimes she decamps to the house alone, sometimes with her boyfriend. If she has “some food and some drinks” she “maybe” can convince her sons to join, too.

Given that Munthe began its journey with the help of a Danish supermodel, it was only natural that we called upon another, Josephine Skriver, to don the brand’s latest collection. “Spending a perfect summer day at a summerhouse in the Danish countryside was an absolute dream,” says Skriver, who, despite her international success, always makes a point of working with Danish brands. “It really doesn’t get much better than this.” It was something of a return to her roots for the model, who, at just 14, modelled for Munthe for one of her first gigs, at Munthe’s old summerhouse in the same neighbourhood. “It feels like a full-circle moment being back here, shooting with Naja at her summerhouse again, celebrating all the amazing things she’s achieved with her brand, and knowing there’s so much more to come,” says Skriver.

“She was very young and very very fresh and natural,” says Munthe of that first time working with Skriver all those years ago. Fifteen years later, the model embodies the same ease. “One of the things that I really like about Josephine, is that even with makeup she looks natural, her smile is just… no matter how much makeup she wears when she smiles you can always sense her inner spirit,” says Munthe. Just as with their first shoot, Skriver brought her mum to set.

On the occasion of her brand’s major milestone, I ask Munthe where she hopes to find her business in another 10 years. “10 years ago I would have said bigger and bigger, but that’s not quite my ambition anymore,” she says. “Now it’s like, big in the best way. It’s not important to become the biggest or the richest, but it’s important to be the best version of us.” She wants to be proud of her product and for women to cherish the clothes. She also wants her employees – these days there are 40 – to enjoy coming to work every day.

Munthe tells me an anecdote that embodies this sentiment. A few days before we chat, she was driving her car near the brand’s office in Christianshavn. “I saw this girl, she was probably in her mid-20s, and I noticed her because she looked so good,” she says. “She was talking on her phone and having a coffee.” The girl was wearing black boots, a mini skirt and a knit. Upon closer inspection, Munthe recognised the knit as her own, from a collection released some 25 years ago. “It was so cute and so hot at the same time. And I thought it’s fantastic, because I love my clothes to appeal not to a certain age or a way of identifying in terms of gender. It’s not just Scandinavian, you can live anywhere,” she says. “I was so happy to see that girl.”