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When I arrived at Nicklas Skovgaard’s Copenhagen studio, he was standing outside in the snow sipping a small cup of coffee and smoking a cigarette. He wore a navy-blue Nike baseball cap and a simple navy coat over a button-up shirt and trousers, the kind of pared-back outfit that has become something of a uniform for him. He and his team had moved into the space just only a month earlier, he said.

Inside, the studio felt closer to a lived-in apartment than a workplace. Cosy. Cardboard boxes were still stacked along the walls, unpacked. A couple things however had already found their place: plates Nicklas had collected at flea markets arranged on the kitchen wall and a wooden rocking horse near the table, which he absent-mindedly kept nudging back and forth with his foot as we spoke.

Nicklas Skovgaard grew up on the small Danish island of Thurø with no real access to fashion, but surrounded by objects that shaped how he learned to look. As a child, Skovgaard was drawn less to toys than to things: Old Danish films. Porcelain cups. Photographs. Objects that carried atmosphere. Today, he still finds it difficult to throw things away. Even flea-market purchases feel archival. He likes imagining himself decades from now, remembering who he was through what he kept.

But even before objects and clothing, there were horses. He spent eight years riding, an interest inherited from a father who grew up on a farm that once bred the animals. Long before fashion, there was movement, discipline, and time spent outdoors — a rhythm that required patience and steadiness.

Music arrived early, too. One of his clearest childhood memories is sitting in his father’s car in 2003, listening to Madonna’s American Life. He remembers the drive, the songs and the album’s visual world: a poster of Madonna dressed like Che Guevara that he later taped to the wall of his bedroom.‘I think this was the beginning,’ he explained, ‘not just of loving music, but of understanding that music could become visual. That clothes, images and sound were connected.’

Meeting two days before he was due to present his Autumn Winter 2026 collection, Skovgaard explained that the season draws on the Danish actress Marguerite Viby, whom he describes as ‘Denmark’s darling’. In Mille, Marie og mig (Millie, Marie and Me), a black-and-white classic, Viby inhabits two roles at once: a cabaret dancer by night and a medical student by day.

The reference felt fitting, ironically. Skovgaard himself is often described as a darling of Copenhagen’s fashion scene. But the affinity runs deeper than charm. What interests him is the possibility of multiple selves existing side by side, without one overtaking the other.

Before starting his label, Skovgaard was wary of fashion as an industry. He had heard enough stories about cruelty and hierarchy to approach it cautiously. When he began working, he decided to build slowly and privately, using his own circle as a foundation.

‘I need it to feel personal,’ he says. ‘Otherwise I don’t thrive.’

Family remains central to Skovgaard. His father died when he was 14. He speaks to his mother every day. She still lives where he grew up. Old photographs of both his parents hang inside a kitchen cabinet in his Copenhagen apartment, visible only when the door is opened. ‘They mean a lot to me,’ he says. ‘It’s not really about the objects. It’s about what meaning they hold.’

At 18, when Skovgaard moved to Copenhagen, the city offered anonymity, community and space. It was also where he realised he was gay. Growing up in a small place, visibility felt risky. In Copenhagen, it felt possible. ‘Moving here opened everything,’ he says. ‘Friends, places, freedom.’ Friends eventually became fitting models and walked his shows.

Today, designing womenswear begins with a practical question: ‘how would I want to dress myself if I wore women’s clothes?’

His relationship to femininity was never framed as transgressive at home. His parents bought him dolls. His father once returned from London with a Baby Spice Barbie. As a child, Skovgaard imagined himself more often in women’s clothes than men’s.

The result is a body of work that often resists instant legibility. Dresses may feature oversized zips placed conspicuously at the back. Stockings appear with open shoes. Silhouettes can feel slightly misaligned. Critics have sometimes described the effect as awkward.

‘I actually like that word,’ Skovgaard says. ‘Awkward sophistication.’

He is less interested in beauty that resolves immediately than in clothing that provokes a second look. Visually, his work is frequently associated with the 1980s — a decade he did not experience first-hand, but knows through his mother’s youth. Photographs of her in Copenhagen in her twenties. Stories of going out, of dressing up, of wanting to be seen.

‘I’m not researching decades,’ he says. ‘It’s more about the atmosphere.’

Skovgaard avoids heavy theorising about his work. He describes himself instead as intuitive. It matters to him that he can explain what he does to his mother. The language must remain simple.

He imagines people of many kinds wearing his pieces: fashion-forward and understated, young and old, styled carefully or almost accidentally. ‘I don’t want to limit it,’ he says. That openness, that refusal to settle into a single reading, can invite misunderstanding. Many did not understand his first show either: a single model, a performance artist, a sparse presentation. Some did. That was enough.

‘I believe in what I’m doing,’ he says. ‘That has to be enough.’

Copenhagen remains where he chooses to show. Not because of strategy, but because of support. His friends are there. His boyfriend is there. After a show, he goes home. ‘Showing your work is vulnerable,’ he says. ‘Here, I feel safe.’