How the Sons of Acne Studios’ Jonny Johansson Took Copenhagen Fashion Week

Adding a bit of Swedish flair to the goings-on at Copenhagen Fashion Week were the Johansson brothers, Frasse and Tage. They are, as you might have guessed from their surname, the sons of Acne Studios’ Jonny Johansson. No strangers to fashion, they are spreading their wings.

Frasse, who was 11 years old in 2015 when he wore a pink coat and heels in an Acne campaign, has since signed to Mikas Models, though his real passion isn’t the runway, but vintage clothes. After completing his studies, Frasse relocated to Japan; exploring the retail landscape there he came to the “realization that, wow, you can really do whatever you want. Walking into a store was like walking into someone’s mind.” Returning to Sweden, he decided to do something with his lifelong fascination with “clothes and their history,” and last August he opened No Cricket Stockholm, a vintage store in an old tobacco shop in his hometown after having refurbished it himself. The idea was that the decor would resemble the interior of a disco ball, so silver and mirrors. “I go to the dumpster two times a week to find new stuff to use,” he says.

For Copenhagen Fashion Week Frasse drove his van down from Stockholm to set up a pop-up shop in Fredericksburg. There, as in Sweden, the racks are filled with everything he likes, which could be an Ed Hardy shirt, a rare Raf Simons piece, or a Comme des Garçons dress. He sources these treasures on a few buying trips a year as well as online. Frasse’s unicorn, by the way, is Hussein Chalayan’s airplane dress.

“Everything I buy, I would wear,” he says. He’s attracted not only to the story and provenance of garments, but also their make. “I also do resale,” he says, “because there’s no space anymore for producing new stuff; that’s why I go to the dumpster. That’s the situation we’re in, this is something I think is important. Reuse is something I want to push.”

Frasse Johansson for Acne Studios, fall 2020 menswear

Photo: Andrea Adriani / Gorunway.com

Tage Johansson for Acne Studios, spring 2023

Photo: Isidore Montag / Gorunway.com

What brought 18-year-old Tage Johansson to Copenhagen Fashion Week was being cast in Berner Kühl’s spring show. He made his catwalk debut at Acne’s spring 2023 show in Paris, after which he was signed to Mikas. But modeling is still a side job; a student of social sciences, Tage lives with his family in Stockholm.