PAOLINA RUSSO OPENED THE DOORS AND COPENHAGEN CAME IN
Paolina Russo's SS27 show was staged at Nørrebrohallen with two giant stars strewn across the floor and the public standing at the edges; it left us smiling from ear to ear.
It is not often that we leave a show gleaming from what we have just seen. But at Paolina Russo's Lone Star we could not stop.
Copenhagen's Nørrebrohallen acts as a sports hall with a barrel-vaulted roof, steel trusses and a long run of skylights, and the show ran late enough that the glass had turned gold. Across the floor, Paolina Russo had laid two enormous fabric stars in magenta, lime, navy and pink under each performer's podium, splitting up the floor between performances. The collection's title was made literal and took up most of the room. Around them, the seats lined the perimeter with standing rows filled behind, because Russo had opened the doors to everyone.
People came in off the street and watched from the edges at the same distance from the runway as anybody else, and the barriers of privacy that fashion has spent decades constructing were simply not there for the afternoon. So much so that they spilled outside of the venue.
The collection consisted of washed sage cardigans buttoned over pale pink and yellow ditsy floral dresses, oversized pink flowers at the ear and long braids. Marbled and tie-dyed prints, checked knits, denim, patchwork, camouflage, colour turned up throughout. Russo and Lucile Guilmard build their illusion knits as zero-waste panels in Woolmark-certified wool, and the give comes from the twist of the yarn and the structure of the knit rather than from added synthetics, which is precisely why the clothes could take what happened next.
What happened next brought smiles to the room. The models with skateboards got on them while Grace Ives and the Copenhagen group Haloplus+ went back-to-back. Guests were encouraged to dance up on the runway while ECCO put on the prosecco and had shod the entire cast. The finale brought everyone out together, clapping, the audience up on their feet under the gold skylights, all while Grace Ives' hit single Stupid Bitches boomed.
The accessories were to die for, and the clothes were gorgeous, but the thing that lifted the afternoon was the atmosphere Russo had built. There is a version of the open show that exists to be photographed once. This was not that. The public stayed for all of it, and having the privacy barriers brought down between the "in-crowd" and the public allowed everyone to share the wonderful experience of what Paolina Russo's fashion had to offer.
Russo took the Zalando Visionary Award in 2023 and has held a Copenhagen slot since, and Lone Star was so good, so beautiful, and so inclusive in the best ways possible. Thank you for letting us stop, smile and appreciate the wonderful world of fashion in the middle of a week of rushing about.
