The Dark Light of Summer
MKDT Studio showed The Dark Light of Summer at Copenhagen Fashion Week this August – a Spring/Summer 2027 collection tracing the line between Vilhelm Hammershøi's hushed interiors and Kirsten Klein's Danish coastal landscapes. I photographed the show on film and hand-printed every frame in the darkroom before scanning it.
Caroline Engelgaar showed the collection outdoors, between flowerbeds and plane trees, the audience ringed around a gravel path. Her reference points were two Danish image-makers – Hammershøi's quiet interiors and Kirsten Klein's windblown coastal landscapes – and both were legible in the clothes: collarless blazers and softly built dresses in wool, linen, and hemp, cut long and loose so the fabric could move. Buttons ran down the spine of several looks, echoing the turned backs of Hammershøi's paintings, while blurred florals, fringe, and layered organza carried Klein's landscapes onto the garments. Some models walked with armfuls of wild grasses and flowers, as if they had come in from far outside the city.
The photographs were made the slow way: shot on film during the show, printed by hand in the darkroom, and scanned from the finished prints. The grain, the soft edges, and the small flaws are part of the picture, not something added afterwards – each frame passed through my hands twice before it reached this page.
