Nothing Remains the same at Remain

There's a new twist in the tale of Remain, where Martin Asbjørn was just announced as the new creative director – and it already bodes well.

LÆS DEN DANSKE UDGAVE HER

Remain, Tuesday 8. August 2023 at 17.00, O—Overgaden art gallery

I’ve always liked Remain. Like that slightly more calm, tamed older sister next to the wild, more festive Rotate. The reasonable and restrained. More mature and toned down. But maybe also a bit introverted. The one who disappears into the crowd and stands in the corner at a party. Always a bit in the shadow of her little sister.

But it seems the time has come to pull the big sister back into the spotlight. Out of the crowd and onto the dance floor.

At today’s Remain show, which was held at O-Overgaden, something really nice happened. Something that I hadn’t expected but which now seems completely obvious. Birger Christensen Collective has hired Martin Asbjørn as the new creative director for Remain, and the SS24 collection has thus been created in collaboration between him and Denise Christensen, before he takes the helm alone for the AW24 season ahead.

It was quite clear that there were new creative forces at play. Martin Asbjørn’s fingerprints were all over the collection – and the show, sort of. A collection and a show had a certain edge that perhaps we were previously missing. Not like a relentless eraser that smudges the original vision away, as we sometimes see with a creative shift. The collection was still very Remain. Feminine, classic and mature in its expression and brimming with leather, the brand’s favourite material, both in the form of a classic black biker jacket, bomber jacket and pencil skirt, and also in a more oversized white jacket, styled in reverse on the model. One hip-length white top with clear waist seams. A set of trousers and T-shirt as well as a blazer blue leather that looked like denim. A short-sleeved blazer. I could go on.

The colour scheme remained subtle and muted yet with an essence of something fresh. This time in form of a light grass green on a transparent sequined textile, sewn onto a long fitted skirt like a large T-shirt and ditto kaftan worn over a classic white, as well as a pin-striped suit – which perhaps looks suspiciously like something Martin Asbjørn previously designed under his own name for his AW22 show.

In general, there was still a lot of focus on the suits in various shades, styles which are synonymously Remain. But in several places Asbjørn showed his face with extra broad shoulders, suit pants so short that they would be called hot pants, pencil skirts worn as strapless dresses and several short-sleeved midriff-baring blazers. Even the models and styling efforts were clearly representative of Asbjørn’s slightly darker, raw attitude. This juxtaposition suited – and balanced – the more polished Remain perfectly well.

To call this a new era for Remain would perhaps be a slight exaggeration based solely on today’s show, but at least it made me look forward to seeing what the great design talent Martin Asbjørn can achieve under the roof of the Birger Christensen Collective, where there is room to unfold the arms again. Finally.

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