Sunflower Copenhagen Fall 2023 Collection

Despite its name, Sunflower is a citified brand with the kind of inherent tenacity more associated with the proverbial weed growing through a crack in concrete. Copenhagen, despite its idyllic aspects, is a capital with some grit, which is how creative director Ulrik Pedersen and co-owner/founder Alan Blond like it.

Not for them are polished show venues and perfect styling. They presented their fall collection in the cramped confines of their showroom on a cast that included local musicians. The nominal theme was supergroups, “the idea being that each look has what it takes to be the frontman,” the press release stated. That’s a catchy summation, and it points in the direction of the values driving the brand. “For us it’s more important that we catch the right people instead [of following trends],” said Pedersen during a walkthrough.

The brand name takes the singular form, not the plural (sunflowers are usually grown en masse in fields), and you get the sense that Pedersen and co. have built the brand on a belief in an individual’s ability to choose what they want to wear and how to wear it. “Here in Europe people rely on the brand name,” he notes, rather than build their own style. His approach is to make what he and his friends like to wear and hope others like the vibe. It’s not a total look Sunflower pushes, in fact Pedersen advocates for mixing casual pieces and tailored ones, sort of like how a DJ makes a playlist. This isn’t a new idea, but it’s one that feels authentic to the brand, which is rapidly expanding in Asia.

Sunflower’s make your own rules approach means that the collection, at first glance, has no throughline; there’s a little bit of this, a little bit of that. The relationship between a smashing pair of pink corduroys or a shirt made out of a groovy jacquard to the tailoring that was the main theme of the season is difficult to trace, apart from the fact that they all relate back to the Sunflower universe. More coherence would be welcome, and would have complemented the (relative) tightening up of this collection as Pedersen moved it in a sharper and dressier direction. A return to tailoring, noted Blond, is really a return to their roots after a Covid-imposed break from it. Pedersen’s aim was to look at “suiting in a more contemporary way; the contrast of having something really relaxed with something really sharp is something we believe a lot in.”