The city is buzzing this week as Copenhagen Fashion Week and Festival gets underway. But it’s not all glamour and parties. Breaking into this notoriously competitive market is an enormous challenge for up and coming designers. Without a little luck and help, many young and talented designers struggle to get noticed.
This is a scenario entrepreneurs David Dencker and Gitte Jonsdatter are trying to change with their online company MUUSE.com, which sells made to order clothes from over 60 designers represented on their website.
But the website does more than simply showcase up-and-coming designers. According to Jonsdatter it offers solutions to other problems facing both designers and the industry as a whole.
“It costs desginers a lot of money to develop a graduation collection and launch a label,” Jonsdatter said. “It might be an investment, but when you have just graduated its way too much if a risk when you don’t know if it’s going to hit off.”
Instead of designers having to produce multiple copies of each garment and various sizes and hope they sell, items are only made once an order comes in through the website.
“By listening to people and connecting them directly to designers it is possible for us to only produce the things people love and want. This way we can avoid the fashion industry's waste and overproduction and make it possible for young designers to reach an international audience,” Jonsdatter said.
But while Copenhagen’s fashion star isn’t as bright as Milan, Paris or New York, Dencker and Jonsdatter still decided it was the natural location for the business, not only because of the city’s love for design but also because of the resident’s online habits.
“A lot of people like spending money on fashion and at the same time Scandinavia is one of the regions with the highest activity online,” MUUSE PR and marketing manager Alexandra Bode said.
Copenhagen is also an ideal location for starting a business, Jonsdatter argues, due to the lack of bureaucracy when starting a company and easy access to business incubators and entrepreneurship organisations such as Connect Denmark.
“People network a lot and are open to new ideas, giving advice and feedback. It's very easy to get in touch with people and get their opinion and input to your project,” Jonsdatter said.
While MUUSE is still no guarantee for success, MUUSE still sets a good example of how a company can harness the power of the internet to benefit their customers, producers and ultimately their business as a whole.
