At CPHFW, Galib Gassanoff’s newest assortment was pure poetry

Amid the pantomime of road model at Copenhagen Style Week’s S/S 2027 version, Galib Gassanoff’s present offered a welcome jolt of poetry. Contained in the Statens Museum for Kunst, the runway was lined with tightly patterned carpets from the Caucasus mountain area between the Black and Caspian Seas. These vintage items turned a platform for sculptured silk coats, finely knit scarf cardigans and spare black trousers, whereas evoking the tangled historical past of Central Asia, Northern Iran, Anatolia and Jap Europe.

‘These carpets have particular knots which all of those cultures have shared of their making. They unified everybody as they every added their very own ornaments, colors and gestures. The carpets symbolize this sort of sharing,’ Gassanoff tells Wallpaper*.

‘My thought just isn’t about style. It’s extra about tradition, ethnography, craftsmanship – that’s what pursuits me essentially the most. I’m somewhat removed from the glam of style,’ the Zalando Visionary Award 2026 winner and semi-finalist for the 2026 LVMH Prize says. Gassanoff presents beneath the title Establishment. ‘It’s not a style model, it’s a roof. It’s not solely me, but additionally the staff and communities I’m discovering in my area; I wish to amplify that to cowl extra areas, extra tales and extra locations – that’s my precedence general.’

Aesthetically and geographically, town of Copenhagen is a good distance away from Gassanoff’s roots. He grew up in a village of simply 4,000 folks on the outskirts of Tbilisi in Georgia the place everybody spoke the identical dialect and everybody, he remembers, appeared alike. As a toddler, he was concerned about folklore and clothes, the custom of head scarves and so forth, however he didn’t know what style design was. At 13, browsing the World Extensive Net for the primary time, he found John Galliano’s eccentric work for Dior.

‘That impacted me lots. I noticed a lot of ethnographic parts showcased on a scene in a theatrical means, with the music and the characters. It resonated with me. I realised that possibly I may unify all my passions: music, visible artwork, clothes, tradition, and message, all of it, by way of style.’

At 18, Gassanoff moved to Milan to review at Haute Future Style Academy after receiving a scholarship. ‘I’ve been a visitor there, identical to I’m right here in Copenhagen. I’m Azerbaijani of Georgia, so I’m an ethnic minority there too,’ he says. Italy has launched Gassanoff to methods of constructing from the Nineteen Fifties which can be considerably endangered at present. Not many tailors are making in the identical means, utilizing horsehair and canvases or handstitched hemlines as a result of it takes a lot longer. ‘Everyone seems to be dashing to industrialise every part however I needed to maintain all of that ability. Sure, you are able to do lots with the machine, however I desire that there’s a human contact.’

Gassanoff’s present encapsulated that dedication to the artisanal: his fashions wore Azerbaijani ‘jorab’ socks and sculptural cotton twine tabards hand-knitted by ladies he’d met in his native area. White silk chiffon robes have been coated in ‘Tetri’ cash, the fractional forex launched after Georgia’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1995. They’re an emblem of freedom, democracy and nationwide rebirth. The items open to turn out to be completely flat, providing a brand new type as a wall piece or tapestry. ‘It’s not one thing to be offered, it’s one thing to be collected,’ he says. ‘It’s a one-of-a-kind piece. I’m attempting to encourage a dialogue between what’s artwork, what’s textile, what’s collectable, what’s clothes.’