“We never wanted to narrow us down to a type,” Birgitte Herskind and Andres Hess, founders and creative directors of Danish brand Herskind, explain in the show notes. “What we care about is a woman’s mindset — her strength, her curiosity, her confidence in being many things at once.” This was the starting point for the label’s spring-summer 2026 collection, which proposes a polished wardrobe for the modern city woman — someone who balances personal style with functionality, but isn’t afraid to command attention with a bold look.

This season, we’re back on Papirøen (literally translated to “the Paper Island”) in Copenhagen, where the brand showcased its collection last season. The venue — both beautiful and stark, with lots of glass, concrete, and towering columns — feels like the perfect can-be-anything blank canvas. “I am woman. I am fearless. I am sexy. I’m divine.” Emmy Meli’s feminist anthem kicks off the show with a series of affirmations. Several guests (myself included) are bobbing their heads and tapping their toes to the infectiously energetic beat as the first model makes her way around the runway. From the start, an easy-breezy black dress with a gathered drop waist looks like something designed for a woman in motion: deceptively simple, elegant, versatile enough to be worn around the clock. 

Voluminous skirts are a fixture from the get-go, showing up in all lengths, from mini to maxi. Birgitte and Andres use it as a shapeshifting base of sorts — ready to coordinate with everything from a crisp button-up to a well-tailored blazer and statement accessories. There are clean, straightforward everyday styles for those who favor a less-is-more approach, but there’s also plenty of shimmer and shine (fringe-trimmed hems, sleek sequin midiskirts, and diaphanous organza numbers) for those who tread on the edgy side of things. “I believe in skirts for [spring-summer 2026],” Birgitte says. “There’s freedom in them — and power too.”

The designers, as ever, are enjoying marrying opposing ideas like structure and fluidity, sensuality and comfort, and masculinity and femininity. Several looks cleverly play with contrasts: a sharp-shouldered blazer meets the delicate, flowy energy of a floor-length lace skirt. The classic trench is thrown on top of a sheer sequined dress, and a statement leather coat is tempered with a twirl-worthy organza skirt. Always a dominant factor in Herskind’s collections, strong tailoring takes center stage. There is a blazer for every mood — wrapped and tied around the waist, secured with a side button, stripped of its lapels. A camel-on-camel monochromatic look is particularly striking; the single-buttoned blazer makes my heart skip a beat. I love how the model wears it, too — striding forward with her hands tucked matter-of-factly in her pockets. 

There’s a purposeful embrace of flirty femininity with fringe this season. There’s fringe swinging to-and-fro off of tops and skirts and peeking from under hemlines. Accessories, too, are fringed up, with long leather strands swooshing and falling to the floor. This adds interesting movement and texture on the runway. The collection also puts a lot of focus on layering, especially when it comes to lightweight dresses over pants and skirts. We’ve been seeing this styling trick on street stylers (in fact, I’m pretty sure several of them are wearing it in the audience). It looks especially uncomplicated and carefree here on the runway. One standout all-black look, for example, teams up a fringed shark-bite-hem dress with chic black pants.

The color palette blows a cool blast of modernity to the entire collection. For example, any modern woman would want butter-yellow in her wardrobe for the summer, and Herskind offers it up in a myriad of ways — a silky curve-skimming slip finished with a bias-cut panel of delicate lace, lightweight harem pants, and a matching tiered tunic. Tomato red, the color of the season, is interspersed with Herskind’s wear-with-anything palette of blacks, whites, creams, and grays in smoky hues.

Through cut and color, Birgitte and Andres imbue an elevated but leisurely attitude into every piece. This has been Herskind’s strength since Birgitte established the brand back in 2018. The way she and Andres continue to explore that tension between subtlety and boldness is what makes their work special. Whether it’s the new proportion of a timeless trench coat or a fresh take on the sultry slip, they design for a woman who’s unbeatable, creative, feminine, masculine — and anything she wants.