From Furniture to Fashion: Danish Design and Copenhagen Street Style

        Wood Wood Museum, positioned at the forefront of Danish street style and trend, inhabits a space somewhere between The Met and H&M or—perhaps more accurately—between a contemporary arts gallery and the Nike Store. This is no traditional art museum, this is a store–a street fashion store. Fully outfitted with the sounds of hip hop and the bustle of 20-something Danes milling about crowded displays of works, this is a museum where visitors can feel and prototype art themselves. Visitors come to look, and sometimes touch. They don’t always come to buy, but are always there to observe and absorb the collision of color, concept, worldly pop culture, and Scandinavian design. 

These busts were on display above the garments in the Wood Wood Headquarters

           Streetwear brands curate the objects that fill their exclusive shelves, creating an image that transcends a physical location or webspace. The Wood Wood Museum contains works and garments from its own brand, but also features the designs of lauded international artists like Comme des Garçons–a very ‘of the moment’ French-inspired Japanese brand–and the Russian filmmaker-turned-designer with an eponymous brand, Gosha Rubinsky. This eclectic selection of works from both Denmark and around the world means that Wood Wood isn’t just a stagnant symbol or a collection, it’s a lifestyle.

           Contemporary fashion and lifestyle brand is exactly what the Wood Wood Museum creative director Karl-Oskar Olsen calls it. After growing up in the suburbs of Copenhagen, Olsen studied Furniture and Set Design at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. This decidedly Danish education informs the sophisticated silhouettes and functionality of his pieces. His grounded sense of style diffuses easily from sleek Scandinavian chair design to an equally classic clothing line. The collections on display in Wood Wood’s headquarters in Nørrebro push boundaries in form and pattern, while consistently maintaining elegant simplicity and a nodding to tradition.

A newly released dress and pair of earrings in the Wood Wood Museum 

          Wood Wood’s creative direction has its beginnings in furniture design, but it is in constant conversation with high fashion. Olsen remarked that streetwear and high fashion “feed off one another”. This feedback loop is nothing new: we most often look to the street style of New York, Tokyo, and London to glimpse what might be on the runway months later and in stores in twice that time. Thus, streetwear designers are in the unique position of taking direction from high runway fashion while also influencing it. This most often leads to a creative blend of the classic and avant-garde, but simultaneously catering to a trendsetter and a trend follower can make for a disjointed collection. Wood Wood avoids this trap by harnessing the Danish modern tradition to cater to a safe shopper, while playing with pattern, color, and concept.

          When Olsen co-founded the Wood Wood Museum in 2002 he immediately took it in an international direction, though clearly maintaining a firm hold on its Nørrebro roots. The brand has collaborated with Danish artists across the board, from Denmark’s most recognizable label, Lego, to a more niche Copenhagen artist duo, Elmgreen & Dragset.

Work from the Lego collaboration on the left, and the Elmgreen & Dragset collaboration on the right. 

          Wood Wood’s most recent collection, entitled Mondano, is not a one-on-one collaboration, yet the pieces still take forthright influence from pop culture. The Italian-inspired Summer looks are emblazoned with the words ‘REAL NOBODY FAKE SOMEBODY’ as a play off of a Matt Damon quote from the American film ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’: ‘I always thought it would be better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody’.

Pieces from the Mondano collection. The model in the left photo was actually working at the store when I visited and answered my questions about the chief designer’s process. I didn’t know he modeled the works until I found this photo online! 

           This collection concept, while cheeky and a tad overt, still illustrates some of the central themes promoted in the Wood Wood Museum. The looks’ message emphasizes individuality, yet reflects on a shared social climate. Though maintaining a youthful sportswear form, the designs want to be noticed. They want you to be noticed wearing them.

          Wood Wood Museum is no traditional art museum. Nevertheless, it is emblematic of the confluence of pop culture, artistry, and sleek design that is modern Danish style. Maintaining its Danish soul while exploring the international edges of high fashion, contemporary art, and functional design, it is an overlooked artifact of Copenhagen as an increasingly ‘new’ artistic hub. Wood Wood navigates up and down the fashion spectrum, informing us of the conversations that artists and designers have—both explicit and implicit—that permeate our lives in what we ultimately buy, wear, and see walking down the street.


The photos that are not taken by myself are from the Wood Wood Museum website:
https://www.woodwood.com/

Some background information included is from a profile in WHITELIES online magazine:
https://www.whiteliesmagazine.com/blog/2017/8/30/portrait-of-wood-wood