Danish designer Stine Goya revisits Florian Illies’ 1913 Århundredets Sommer for Spring/Summer 2027.

While the sharp decline in literacy and reading habits becomes a concern worldwide, reading (or the illusion of reading, at least) has sparked a wave of marketing and fashion trends, from exclusive book clubs to a social media aesthetic dubbed “literary chic.” 

For Danish designer Stine Goya, however, reading is more than a performative exercise or a banal inspiration for outfits. In her latest Spring/Summer 2027 collection, titled “Before” and presented at Copenhagen Fashion Week, reading is an anchor to reality and a gateway to the past as much as it is a tool for reflection and intellectual liberation. Reading is how Goya is first transported to 1913, a period of intense cultural activity, compiled in Florian Illies’ 1913 Århundredets Sommer (1913: The Year Before the Storm). The book offers a month-by-month recount of the cultural landscape in Europe ahead of World War I.  

“I read Florian Illie’s book 1913 about the last year Europe’s artists lived as if there were no tomorrow—in the middle of a clash between isms and new ways of expressing themselves,” shared Goya in a press statement. “I was struck by how that mood mirrors now: a world full of change, where it’s hard to know what’s true, where AI is shaking our sense of reality, and where so much seems to be out of balance. It feels like we’re standing on the edge of major change– the kind we can’t yet fully grasp, much like the artists of 1913 couldn’t grasp what was coming.”

“Before” SS27 Collection

Evoking the 1913 cultural landscape portrayed in the book, Goya’s runway thrived on its amalgamation of motifs, color and texture. With Expressionism as the starting point, the collection transformed countryside landscapes and nature themes into vibrant color palettes, elaborate embroidery and floral patterns, which contrasted against the deceptively minimalist silhouettes. Clean, relaxed tailoring, A-line skirts and silk scarves reinvented as dresses punctuated the runway. 

Floral motifs, translated into complex beadwork, woven jacquard, and knitting, adorned shirts, mini dresses, and sweaters. Meanwhile, a frame motif recurred in the form of embroidered hems, crystal embroidery, and printed silk dresses. 

An ode to cultural exchange and the creative community

“Before is an ode to artistic exchange, to the communities that shape culture through shared imagination, and to the enduring belief that the future is not fixed but imagined together,” said the brand in a press statement. 

Stine Goya’s return to Copenhagen Fashion Week, two years after their last collection showing at the event, was complete with a performance-driven runway. Presented at Terminal 13, an industrial venue overlooking the Øresund strait, the runway channeled the proximity between creative minds inspiring the collection. Models and a “selection of creative talents” walked side by side, reinforcing the idea that culture is shaped through exchange.

“Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring caused riots in Paris, Malevich was moving toward pure abstraction, Proust and Kafka turned their gaze inward toward the subjective and beneath it all lay a premonition of what was to come. Creative freedom and existential unease side by side – it’s what makes 1913 a powerful mirror for now,” said Stine Goya of the spirit behind “Before.”

See the collection highlights below.

Photos courtesy of CPHFW/ Stine Goya. Photography by James Cochrane