A. Roege Hove has knitwear in the palm of her hand

In the first show of the season, A Roege Hove showed that it is still possible to push the boundaries of what knitwear is and can do – even within the narrow confines of the brand.

LÆS DEN DANSKE UDGAVE HER

A. Roege Hove, Monday 7. August 2023 at 16.00, Designmuseum Danmark

In Denmark, you can always talk about the weather if you don’t know what else to say. So, let’s get that out of the way right now. Because looking at the weather forecast for this week, it probably won’t be the last time we feel like mentioning it. And yes, it puts a dampener on a show when everything is wet and grey, but we actually have other things to talk about now than the rain – like A. Roege Hove’s show which had the honour of opening this season’s fashion week.

And straight away, with the first look, it became a little less miserable to sit there on the wet benches in the pouring rain. Because here was a look with a completely transparent, finely knitted top with sewn-on pearls neatly placed in squares. Beads are new at A. Roege Hove and that’s what is always exciting about her shows: what’s the new thing she’s doing with her knitwear this time? Røge Hove’s designs are always very characteristic and easily recognisable for the brand. But even if you always get her classic rib knit, knitted on a machine with one cotton thread and one nylon thread, in varying widths and degrees of density – and often in black and white – you also always get something new. A new technique, a new silhouette, a new color, a new look.

It wasn’t just the sewn-on pearls that we saw on several looks that were fresh. A distinctive new technique with long floats (as the transverse threads are called) across tops and skirts that were somewhat reminiscent of feathers or hair gave a different kind of volume and surface than we are used to. Especially on a white short-sleeved bolero and a white mini-skirt, it worked really well. It’s a technique that Røge Hove developed while working on the collection she was to create for the International Woolmark Prize for which she won the Karl Lagerfeld Award for Innovation this spring.

And then there were the new colours. A delicate pink gave a soft and romantic touch to the many black styles though a sharp tangerine colour was my personal favourite. I have a thing for orange dresses at the moment and the ankle-length, high-neck, long-sleeved dress with an open back hit the spot.

At the same time, something else has also happened with A. Roege Hove’s designs. It is no longer exclusively the body-hugging and transparent styles that dominate the collection – although these still worked well as we saw on the orange case mentioned above. There were more and more looser skirts and dresses, where the knit seems firmer and looks confusingly like woven fabric which can be shaped with pleats instead. And in this way, the collection becomes more fully complete, season by season, so that it’s not “just” rib with rib. Naturally that can work well, but it might become a bit monotonous, which is why it’s refreshing to see A. Roege Hove work in new ways.

Amalie Røge Hove has chosen a craft and a look and she sticks to it. Within that tight framework, she pushes and breaks down the boundaries of what can be done and what has been seen before. She is innovative and dedicated, and you can only respect that. It all starts at the knitting machine, and here she stays but she makes the knitting completely her own.

See a selection of the show looks below and see the entire collection here