Description of the program

Friday 21.08.2026

4 pm | Festival Opening - AFW CPH Friday Bar

Alternative Fashion Week CPH 2026 opens its doors with a traditional ‘fredagsbar’ bringing everyone together before the festival begins. Join us for a drink where you can meet the artists, designers, activists and people who have helped shape this year's festival. We start the weekend not just by talking about a sustainable future, but by asking how we can build it together.

Alternative Fashion Week is a response to the fast fashion system and a celebration of the people, ideas and practices showing us that another way is possible.

Through reuse, slow fashion, circular thinking and creative experimentation, we bring people together to explore what fashion can look like when creativity, community and action coincide.

Welcome!

🕒 4 pm 

📍 Main Stage (The Courtyard, Union)

 4.30 pm | Visible Mending Workshop by Lærke Damshøj

Free your hands and get creative as Lærke Damshøj invites you to a hands-on textile workshop. Give your clothes or textiles a new life, whether through small repairs or creative appliqué. No experience is needed—just bring your curiosity and willingness to create and learn.

✦ Everyone is welcome
✦ Materials and guidance are provided
✦ Cosy and informal atmosphere

The workshop is all about reinforcing, repairing and transforming. It might be a subtle patch that blends naturally into the fabric or a colourful motif that gives a garment new life and character.

We will experiment with contrasts, transparency, texture and visible stitches that become part of the garment's story. It's not about making something perfect—it's about making it personal.

During the workshop, you will get:

• An introduction to appliqué and visible mending as creative repair techniques

• Guidance on choosing fabrics, colours and placement

• Inspiration for working intuitively with fabrics, shapes and textures

• Help with both hand sewing and using a sewing machine

• Inspiration for turning wear and holes into strengths in your design

You don't need any previous sewing experience. The workshop is for anyone who wants to get hands-on with textiles and give their clothes another chance.

Bring one or more garments that could use a repair, a refresh or a little transformation. Textiles and materials will also be available at the workshop.

🕒 4.30 pm

📍 Workshop Area (The Courtyard, Union)

4.45 pm | Opening speech and spoken word by Ugandan designer Yakim Mughalazi

The Festival officially starts with our annual opening speech welcoming Alternative Fashion Week CPH 2026 highlighting this year's theme. What do our clothes and fashion tell us about class, identity, and the systems we are all a part of? Throughout the two days we invite the audience to experience art, conversations and performances that challenge the narratives we take for granted and imagine what a different future can look like. 

We close our introduction with a poem by Ugandan designer Yakim Mughalazi, from Banakibuga Street Minds collective. 

🕒 4.45 pm

📍Main Stage (The Courtyard, Union)

5 pm | DANCE PERFORMANCE: Threads of tradition byBanakibuga Street Minds 

Through a live dance performance, the Ugandan designer collective Banakibuga Street Minds, trace the journey from fast fashion’s waste to slow fashion’s craft. Through movement, costume and rhythm, they transform discarded synthetic textile excess to handmade, earth-rooted textiles; celebrating culture, durability, and climate justice in every step. This performance invites audiences to imagine a fashion future rooted in care rather than consumption.

Dancers:

Faruk Luleti, Dancer, Street artist and Slow Fashion Designer at the Ugandan designer collective, Banakibuga Street Minds

Yakim Mughalazi, Dancer, Street artist and Slow Fashion Designer at the Ugandan designer collective, Banakibuga Street Minds

Tumukunde Deogratius Dancer and Slow Fashion Designer at the Ugandan designer collective, Banakibuga Street Minds

🕒 5 pm

📍 Café Stage, Union

5.30-6.15 pm | talk: Sewing Dreams - From Kenya to Denmark

Lili Dreyer and David Avido bring their experiences from Denmark and Kenya into a candid, two-way conversation about fashion, upcycling, entrepreneurship and the power of sewing. Together, they explore how working with textile waste - and the opportunities created through sewing - looks very different across the two countries. A conversation about waste, creativity and the very different ways a needle and thread can change lives.

📍 Main stage, (The Courtyard, Union)

6.30 pm | Deconstructed catwalk

This year’s Deconstructed Catwalk explores the theme of Class, unpacking the obvious and less obvious hierarchies that shape our society, our identities and the way we move through the world. This isn’t just to portray the inequality, but to deconstruct it. We aim to challenge the structures that uphold class divisions and give shape to the rebellion simmering beneath the surface. Through fashion, performance, and staging, the catwalk moves away from the traditional ideals of Fashion Week and towards narratives that rarely find a place in the spotlight.

After the show, we move out into UNION’s courtyard for a classic runway, bringing the day’s designers together for one final walk.

🕒6.30 + walk in the courtyard

📍 Aula, 1 floor, Union

7.15 | Concert: Loulou Celest

Loulou Celest is an icon in the Copenhagen underground, back from her tour in Asia, the trans woman rapper with cute and pretty energy, making crowds everywhere sing along to her songs about celebrating yourself and helping each other.

📍 Main Stage (The Courtyard, Union)

Saturday 22.08.2026

12.00 Noon | Opening Speech & Designer show by the Circular Textile Design education 

The doors are open. The music is playing. The festival has begun. Welcome to Alternative Fashion Week CPH 2026! We kick off the weekend with this year's opening speech, inviting you into the ideas and reflections behind this year's festival. We start the weekend not just by talking about a sustainable future, but by asking how we can build it together.

This will be followed by The Art of Sustainable Fashion, a showcase by students from Circular Textile Design at @kbhprof and the first show to open this year’s Alternative Fashion Week.

PAST and FUTURE

The show’s first act draws inspiration from the art of the past, bringing it into dialogue with contemporary expression. The second act looks forward, as students present their visions for the future of art and humanity.

Through experimental techniques, innovative materials, and boundary-pushing designs, the show explores what a more sustainable textile culture could look like.

Head to the Fashion Agora to get up close with the designs, discover the creative processes behind them, and meet the people making them.

🕒 12 noon

📍 Main Stage, (The Courtyard, Union)

12 noon-8 pm | Fashion Agora

Fashion Agora returns! Transforming the courtyard once again into a vibrant space for textile activism, craftsmanship, and bold visions for the future of fashion. See old bed linen become pyjamas, how discarded tarp is reimagined as a bag, and worn-out workwear is transformed into sneakers.

Every piece you encounter in the Agora is a direct result of designers' careful yet uncompromising work. Reshaping discarded materials into garments that carry stories of care, justice, and aesthetics without exploitation.

The Agora is a place where you can touch the alternatives to fast fashion and experience the future of textiles through slow fashion.

🕒 Opening Hours:
Saturday 22 August | 12 noon–8 pm

📍 Fashion Agora (The Courtyard, Union)

1-2 pm | Fashion Show: Dope Divas - Let the eat cake 

On 22 August 2026 at 1:00 PM, dopeDivaZ will present an independent fashion show as part of Alternative Fashion Week at Union.

The show is based on the theme “Class Divide” and explores the differences between the upper and lower levels of society through fashion, performance, and music. Taking this year’s theme as its starting point, we are creating a sustainable fashion show and performance piece in which 50 volunteer models will showcase costumes made entirely from reused materials.

Inspired by Marie Antoinette, the Renaissance, and the extravagant fashion of the 19th century, we explore the contrast between the richest and poorest parts of society. The show will be accompanied by live classical piano music performed by two pianists from the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus and is being created collectively by more than 70 young volunteers.

Clara My Højholt and Signe Blume Kristensen are the founders of the volunteer youth association dopeDivaZ, which has been invited to create a solo show for Alternative Fashion Week 2026 at Union.

dopeDivaZ is a young artistic association that brings young people together around art, sustainability, community, and extravagant design. We create creative spaces where young people can freely experiment with art, fashion, and performance without commercial demands or limitations.

🕒 1-2 pm

📍Main Stage (The Courtyard, Union)

Deconstructed catwalk 2 pm | 2.30 + walk in courtyard| 4.45 pm | 7pm walk in courtyard

This year’s Deconstructed Catwalk explores the theme of Class, unpacking the obvious and less obvious hierarchies that shape our society, our identities and the way we move through the world. This isn’t just to portray the inequality, but to deconstruct it. We aim to challenge the structures that uphold class divisions and give shape to the rebellion simmering beneath the surface. Through fashion, performance, and staging, the catwalk moves away from the traditional ideals of Fashion Week and towards narratives that rarely find a place in the spotlight.

After the show, we move out into UNION’s courtyard for a classic runway, bringing the day’s designers together for one final walk.

🕒14.00 | 14.30 + walk in the courtyard | 16.45 | 18.30 + walk in the courtyard

📍 Aula, 1 floor, Union

14:00–16:30 | Embroidery Workshop by Re:wair

Re:wair invites you to an embroidery workshop where we explore how embroidery can be both a creative practice and a quiet form of activism. With needle and thread, you can repair a piece of clothing, embroider a nature-inspired motif, or add a quote or message that means something to you.

The workshop takes inspiration from this year's theme, Class Divide, exploring how our relationship with clothing, repair and consumption is shaped by the resources and opportunities available to us.

We'll provide materials, inspiration, templates and guidance. All you need to bring is a piece of clothing or textile that you'd like to repair or give a new expression. If you don't have anything to bring, we'll also have smaller pieces of fabric available.

Quiz

During the workshop, you can also take part in a small quiz about embroidery and class divides, with the chance to win an embroidery kit to take home! The winner will be drawn at 4 pm, and the prize can be collected on the day.

Come along, embroider a message or a nature-inspired motif, and join us in exploring how repair and creativity can challenge the way we think about value, consumption and class divides.

The workshop is free – just show up and join in!

🕒 2-4.30 pm
📍Workshop Area (The Courtyard, Union)

3-3.45 pm | Talk - Fashion: between identity and responsibility  

Fashion is much more than clothing. It is a language we use to communicate who we are and where we belong. Through what we wear, we express our values, tastes and identities, while also finding communities and signalling social belonging.

For this very reason, fashion is also closely connected to consumption. What we buy becomes a way of shaping and communicating who we are.

As more people distance themselves from the conventional fashion industry and its consequences for people and the environment, second-hand fashion, vintage and other alternatives have become part of this story of identity. They allow us to signal care and responsibility, while at the same time potentially reinforcing the idea that identity and community are primarily created through what we consume.

The talk explores the tension between fashion as a practice through which we create identity and community, and the ambition to take greater environmental and social responsibility.

The conversation asks how the desire to consume differently can represent both a challenge to — and a continuation of — the very mechanisms that drive fashion consumption.

Moderator: Kirstine is a PhD researcher in Critical Organization Studies with a background in Business Administration and Philosophy. Her research focuses on norms, values and alternative ways of organising work and everyday life beyond growth-oriented logics.

Outside academia, she is interested in clothing as a form of identity, expression and belonging.

About Else Skjold: Else Skjold is Associate Professor of Design and Sustainability at the Royal Danish Academy. She is recognised as a pioneer and one of the leading researchers in the field of sustainable fashion.This talk will be held in Danish

🕒 3-3.45 pm

📍 Main Stage, (The Courtyard, Union)

4-4.45 pm | Whacking Dance workshop by Lucie

Step into the world of whacking – an expressive dance style known for its fast arm movements, striking poses, musicality and attitude.

Lucie is a whacking and punking dancer. She was introduced to the styles while completing her dance education in Paris and has been hooked ever since. Over the years, she has performed, taught, travelled and battled with the dance. Lucie is also a co-founder of the dance collective Whacking Daze, where she facilitates sessions, teaches workshops, choreographs performances and curates events with international teachers. What especially draws Lucie to whacking and punking is the styles’ expressiveness, attitude and funkiness.

In this workshop, you’ll be introduced to some of the fundamental techniques of whacking and get the chance to explore how movement can be used to express personality, confidence and emotion. Through rhythm, poses and playful improvisation, we’ll work on finding our own expression and daring to take up space through dance.

Whacking has its roots in the LGBTQ+ club scene of 1970s Los Angeles, where the dance style developed as a powerful form of self-expression and freedom.

No previous dance experience is needed. Come as you are, move with the music and explore your own way of expressing yourself.

Everyone is welcome.

📍 Courtyard, Union

Deconstructed catwalk 2 pm | 2.30 + walk in courtyard| 4.45 pm | 7pm walk in courtyard

This year’s Deconstructed Catwalk explores the theme of Class, unpacking the obvious and less obvious hierarchies that shape our society, our identities and the way we move through the world. This isn’t just to portray the inequality, but to deconstruct it. We aim to challenge the structures that uphold class divisions and give shape to the rebellion simmering beneath the surface. Through fashion, performance, and staging, the catwalk moves away from the traditional ideals of Fashion Week and towards narratives that rarely find a place in the spotlight.

After the show, we move out into UNION’s courtyard for a classic runway, bringing the day’s designers together for one final walk.

🕒14.00 | 14.30 + walk in the courtyard | 16.45 | 18.30 + walk in the courtyard

📍 Aula, 1 floor, Union

5-7.30 Workshop by Fashion Revolution 

Fahion Revolution are inviting you to a workshop where you´ll create your own personalized journal cover from scrap- and secondhand leather, made to carry your thoughts and ideas for years to come. 

The workshop is hosted by Johanne and Margrete, a Copenhagen-based duo who recently completed their Master's degree in Sustainable Design. Their passion lies in exploring new techniques and creative expression through craftsmanship, with reuse and upcycling at the heart of everything they make. 

The materials for this workshop are the result of months of treasure hunting in local secondhand shops and online marketplaces. You´ll have access to a carefully curated collection of unique leather pieces, secondhand findings and accessories, giving you the opportunity to create a cover that truly feels like you. 

What to bring: 

• Your calendar, notebook, journal, sketchbook, planner etc., so you can make a cover that fits perfectly. 

• If you have a special charm, keepsake, or material you´d like to incorporate into your cover, feel free to bring it along!

🕒 5–7.30 pm

📍 Workshop Area (The Courtyard, Union)

5.15 pm | OWINO REBORN – A Fashion Show by Banakibuga Street Minds

Experience Owino Reborn, a powerful fashion show by the Ugandan designer collective Banakibuga Street Minds, joining this year's Alternative Fashion Week CPH directly from Kampala.

Owino Market gives us the cloth. We give it the story.

Located in Kampala, Uganda's capital, Owino Market is one of East Africa's largest second-hand markets, where garments from around the world arrive every day. Rescued from the piles of garments and reworked by hand, these designs prove that waste isn't waste until we say so.

This time, Owino returns to the world on a runway, at Alternative Fashion Week 2026, as fashion with a heartbeat.

The collaboration is presented in partnership with the Danish organisation, Dreamtown.

🕒 5.15–5.30 pm

📍 Main Stage (The Courtyard, Union)

5.30-6. pm | Talk: Tulinaaza – "We Give New Life" – featuring Banakibuga Street Minds

Tulinaaza means "We Give New Life." in Luganda. Following the fashion show Owino Reborn, Banakibuga Street Minds invites the audience behind the collection and into the story of how discarded garments from Owino Market in Kampala are transformed into unique designs with new stories to tell.

Born in the streets of Kampala and shaped by hip-hop culture, the Ugandan designer collective Banakibuga Street Minds rescues second-hand clothing and gives it new life. Every piece is handmade with bold cuts, visible patches and a street art aesthetic, demonstrating how creativity can foster identity, belonging and new opportunities.

The talk explores the collection, the creative process and the people who give these garments a second life. Every design is one of a kind—made by the community, for the community.

The talk will be held in English.

Panel

Faruk Luleti, Banakibuga Street Minds

Yakim Mughalazi, Banakibuga Street Minds

Tumukunde Deogratius, Banakibuga Street Minds

Moderator
Johanne Mailund Rebsdorf, PhD, University of Copenhagen

🕒 5.30–6.15 pm
📍 Main Stage (The Courtyard, Union)

6.30 pm | DANCE PERFORMANCE: Threads of tradition byBanakibuga Street Minds 

Through a live dance performance, the Ugandan designer collective Banakibuga Street Minds, trace the journey from fast fashion’s waste to slow fashion’s craft. Through movement, costume and rhythm, they transform discarded synthetic textile excess to handmade, earth-rooted textiles, celebrating culture, durability, and climate justice in every step. This performance invites audiences to imagine a fashion future rooted in care rather than consumption.

Dancers:

Yakim Mughalazi, Dancer and Slow Fashion Designer at Banakibuga Street Minds

Tumukunde Deogratius Dancer and Slow Fashion Designer at Banakibuga Street Minds

🕒 6.30 pm

📍 The Café Stage, Union

Deconstructed catwalk 2 pm | 2.30 + walk in courtyard| 4.45 pm | 7pm walk in courtyard

This year’s Deconstructed Catwalk explores the theme of Class, unpacking the obvious and less obvious hierarchies that shape our society, our identities and the way we move through the world. This isn’t just to portray the inequality, but to deconstruct it. We aim to challenge the structures that uphold class divisions and give shape to the rebellion simmering beneath the surface. Through fashion, performance, and staging, the catwalk moves away from the traditional ideals of Fashion Week and towards narratives that rarely find a place in the spotlight.

After the show, we move out into UNION’s courtyard for a classic runway, bringing the day’s designers together for one final walk.

🕒14.00 | 14.30 + walk in the courtyard | 16.45 | 18.30 + walk in the courtyard

📍 Aula, 1 floor, Union

7.30 pm | Concert: NØX

📍 Main Stage (The Courtyard, Union)