Sinéad O’Dwyer Copenhagen Spring 2025 Collection

Copenhagen Fashion Week’s growing international status means that brands outside the Nordic region are increasingly deciding to show in the Danish capital. Following in the footsteps of Paolina Russo last season, Irish-born, London-based designer Sinéad O’Dwyer earned a guest spot on the spring 2025 schedule as the winner of the Zalando Visionary Award.

For O’Dwyer, who has been supported by the British Fashion Council’s NewGen initiative for the past three years, the timing was fortuitous. “This is exactly the support I need,” she said in a preview, describing the financial challenges of her design process, which involves creating garments using multiple fit models of various sizes, instead of the one traditional sample size.

It’s clear that the designer’s commitment to constructing clothing in this way is paying off. During a season where there has been less body diversity on the catwalk than in previous Copenhagen Fashion Week editions, her form-fitting pieces—worn by a diverse cast of models against the backdrop of O’Dwyer’s body-mold sculptures—stood out.

Alongside her trademark lattice bodysuits and cut-out dresses, the designer made a foray into denim this season, ranging from expertly molded denim tops and bodysuits to halterneck rah-rah dresses and skirts. Meanwhile, the lace-up flats inspired by Irish dancing shoes, made in collaboration with Japanese brand Grounds Footwear, are sure to be snapped up when they hit stores.

O’Dwyer says this collection was imbued with a sense of freedom, as she reflected on the year she spent in North Carolina as a teenager—a formative time that saw her fall in love with a girl for the first time and come out to friends and family. The designer’s dedication to promoting inclusivity in everything she does, including casting blind activist Lucy Edwards to walk the catwalk and providing an audio description of the show for blind and low-vision guests, is evidence of how she wants everyone to be afforded similar freedoms.