Adding a bit of Swedish flair to the goings-on at Copenhagen Fashion Week were the Johansson brothers, Frasse and Tage. They are, as you might have guessed from their surname, the sons of Acne Studios’ Jonny Johansson. No strangers to fashion, they are spreading their wings.
Frasse, who was 11 years old in 2015 when he wore a pink coat and heels in an Acne campaign, has since signed to Mikas Models, though his real passion isn’t the runway, but vintage clothes. After completing his studies, Frasse relocated to Japan; exploring the retail landscape there he came to the “realization that, wow, you can really do whatever you want. Walking into a store was like walking into someone’s mind.” Returning to Sweden, he decided to do something with his lifelong fascination with “clothes and their history,” and last August he opened No Cricket Stockholm, a vintage store in an old tobacco shop in his hometown after having refurbished it himself. The idea was that the decor would resemble the interior of a disco ball, so silver and mirrors. “I go to the dumpster two times a week to find new stuff to use,” he says.
For Copenhagen Fashion Week Frasse drove his van down from Stockholm to set up a pop-up shop in Frederiksberg. There, as in Sweden, the racks are filled with everything he likes, which could be an Ed Hardy shirt, a rare Raf Simons piece, or a Comme des Garçons dress. He sources these treasures on a few buying trips a year as well as online. Frasse’s unicorn, by the way, is Hussein Chalayan’s airplane dress.
“Everything I buy, I would wear,” he says. He’s attracted not only to the story and provenance of garments, but also their make. “I also do resale,” he says, “because there’s no space anymore for producing new stuff; that’s why I go to the dumpster. That’s the situation we’re in, this is something I think is important. Reuse is something I want to push.”
What brought 18-year-old Tage Johansson to Copenhagen Fashion Week was being cast in Berner Kühl’s spring show. He made his catwalk debut at Acne’s spring 2023 show in Paris, after which he was signed to Mikas. But modeling is still a side job; a student of social sciences, Tage lives with his family in Stockholm.
Fashion, of course, has always been part of his life, as it has been for his older sibling. “We talk about fashion around the dinner table, we try things out and challenge each other.” It was when he started skateboarding, age 11, that he started figuring out his personal style. Now, after much experimentation, he’s finally easing into a look that’s his own. “I try not to be too predictable and mix different styles,” he says. “I have grown up around different fashion expressions; the skate world has been very inspirational, as well as music—of course, a bit of punk, but also hip-hop and pop rock: Suede, Lenny Kravitz, Tricky, Kent, and The Streets. It’s not always musicians’ looks I’m inspired by, but the ambience of their music. I really just try to do my own thing and feel great in what I wear.”
“I left my heart in Copenhagen” T-shirts have been making the rounds this week; Tage is taking his home with him but he definitely felt the city’s charms. “The best thing about Copenhagen is the people here,” he wrote in a DM exchange. “There is a very nice feeling in the city, a continental vibe that I really like. It is open. I keep forgetting that it is so close to Stockholm: I should come here more often! I also love that skateboarding is such a big part of Copenhagen. It makes me feel included.”
