PFW: Cecilie Bahnsen’s Garden of Eden

If the Book of Genesis is believed, a woman’s bite set forth the world’s wisdom. Femininity is akin to the origin story of Danish designer Cecilie Bahnsen, who rendered the forbidden fruit in a large-scale sculpture and placed it centre stage in Palais de Tokyo at her Fall/Winter 2024 collection presentation during Paris Fashion Week. Titled “The Bite”, Bahnsen evoked the symbolism of girlish wonder by recontextualising her signature whimsy demi-couture pieces in austere, sensible measures. While the designer, who cut her teeth under John Galliano and Erdem Moralıoğlu, will perenially romance the mundane, Bahnsen extrapolated on the beauty of the habitual. There was an appreciation for naivety, but a deeper understanding that time and maturity reveal an idyll of simplicity, too.

Quite gestures—be it healing our inner child by wearing the tulle fantasies of one’s past or more simply imbuing quotidian wares with an element of poetry—can be the most profound. Here in Paris, miles away from her hometown of Copenhagen, the designer offered a discerning judgement, eschewing overt elements of fantasy for designs rooted in reality. This was Bahnsen’s Garden of Eden.

“For me, an Apple represents desire. Love. Strength. Beauty. But there is also an ordinariness to it. I am drawn to this juxtaposition of high and low, the clash between luxury and every day,” the designer explained in the show notes.

This internal dichotomy was observed from the outset in a black oversized V-neck cable knit sweater layered over a sheer slip scattered with sweet daisy embroidery. Winter hallmarks—like the navy sweaters sporting knitted botanical motifs or the billowing windbreakers and fittingly named Mackintosh raincoat—oscillated between pragmatic, austere and ethereal.

In Bahnsen’s world, the canyon between precious, expertly crafted heirloom pieces and the archetypal garments of daily life isn’t difficult to traverse but articulated with fluidity. This collection deviated from her trademark by relegating over-refinement to the silhouettes sported by her community of adherents speckled in the front row.

Even the most magical garments—which there were a few, in bridal whites, spangled silver, diaphanous organza and punctured vinyl—were treated with a lived-in leisureliness. The casting (creative friends of Bahnsens, not conventional models) and styling (with each look completed by a new variant in Bahnsen’s sold-out collaboration with Asics) helped emphasise this point too. Why reserve artistry when it could be savoured at every interval?

In a way, it felt like the collection was more accessible than ever, with every type of woman finding pockets to relish over the 29 looks. Her universe may have been once occupied by the ephemeral fairies and princesses of our imaginations, but when slicing away from these archetypes, a stubbornness for treasuring the commonplace reveals itself.

“This idea of ‘The Bite’ is like leaving innocence behind a little, which somehow also felt very relevant this season,” Bahnsen noted. In Scandinavian mythology, it’s proposed that the Norse goddess of Idun maintains her immortality through the consumption and keeping of magic apples. How fitting then, for Bahnsen to forge this mode of maturity through crafting her own folklore and concluding her runway with models walking the runway with half-bitten fruit.

In Bahnsen’s fairytale, Eve doesn’t leave paradise exiled and ostracised. Here, she walks away with the knowledge of her self-assuredness and a custom-made-to-order wardrobe.

This article first appeared originally on GRAZIA International.