Key Insights and Trends From Retail Fashion at CIFF

Catecut attended CIFF 25 in Copenhagen to ID trends and meet retailers.
Discovering 1200+ Brands at CIFF 25: Key Insights on Fashion and Retail Trends from the show floor: many brands and retailers still manually input data or rely on basic descriptions provided with their Shopify setup. This is where our custom AI models excel. Retailers send their product images via API or other methods, and our AI models analyze, tag, and categorize each item, sending this information back to retailers to enhance their product descriptions (in multiple languages!), boosting on-site filtering and search, as well as SEO/GEO to attract new traffic.

We attended CIFF (Copenhagen International Fashion Fair) for the first time

 

At CIFF 25, we got the opportunity over a week to explore the over 1200 brands on the show floor, from emerging indie designers to big box retail names.

We had two objectives: to learn first-hand what retail fashion trends to expect in the coming year, and to get insights from the brands themselves on their e-commerce opportunities and challenges.

We were pleasantly surprised by how many brands had their creative teams and lead designers present at their booths, elevating the brand experience and providing the perfect platform for us to discuss the interplay between the cuts and fits of their forthcoming range, and how these adaptations will envelope and drape the unique body structures of their customers when they hit the stores.

We loved the overarching theme of sustainability across CIFF and CPHFW, and the clear, continued commitment to inclusivity.

Clothing brands Crystal Rainbow designer Lea Folmann, Tapis Noir creative director Mads Lehn Kruse, Second Female
L-R: Hege Borgersen Faber of Ressource Huset with Lea Folmann, Head Designer at Crystal Rainbow, Mads Lehn Kruse, Creative Director of Tapis Noir, and Catecut Founder & CEO, Heidrun Sigfusdottir with Preben Laust, Creative Director of Second Female

Retail trends at CIFF

We had the opportunity to chat with so many wonderful retailers who shared their goals for 2025 and beyond with us.

Validating our mission to help shoppers find the clothes and build a wardrobe that makes them look and feel their best, all while reducing global apparel returns, brands and retailers endeavor to enrich the online shopping experience of their customers, solve the in-store/online conundrum, reach new audiences to entice new brand loyalists, and importantly, reduce their customer returns problem in a way that doesn’t sour their customer relationships. 

Where we see our solution being most helpful for these brands, retailers and marketplaces with online stores, is augmenting their product descriptions effortlessly.

Retailers still face manual process of product tagging

Most brands and retailers are still manually entering this data, or using stripped down descriptions that come as standard add-ons with their Shopify implementation.

This is where our custom-built AI models will really shine. The retailers send their product imagery by API or other means, and our AI models analyse, deep tag, and categorize each garment, returning this info back to the retailer to augment their product descriptions (in a multitude of available languages!), improving on-store filtering and search, as well as SEO/GEO to help draw in new traffic.

Second, for the brands who rely solely on B2B sales, the valuable backend data Catecut provides their retailer partners can help them ID potential gaps in their offerings that, when remedied, can help prevent their retailers from filling those gaps with products from competing brands.

Likewise, this data gives retailers an opportunity to have fresh new conversations with the brands they carry.

Clothing trends at CIFF

Fall/Winter 2025 will continue to showcase warm, fuzzy coats in shades of ivory, brown, burgundy and moss.

Brands are doubling down on browns, burgundies and denims, and we are here for it. Impressively, these earth tones were blended with classic and unconventional design, with structured but not restrictive silhouettes.

Fuzzy fashion is going to be bigger than ever next autumn if the vast number of long and short coats we saw, touched and tried on are any indication.

Warm, cosy crew and turtlenecks are replacing the plunging necklines of years past. Fabrics of various organic and non-organic materials will dominate sweater designs, pinstripes and oversized dress shirts will continue to be everywhere, while straight-leg, mid-rise trousers and a-lines skirts continue to trend.

Denim on Denim on Denim

Relaxed fit jeans are prominent once again. But as Alix Earle has amplified on social media of late, some skinny jeans are sneaking their way back into prominence. Danish denim giant Bestseller introduced JJXX to great fanfare and a 100 denim jacket giveaway. This follows their announcement of the opening of their first Jack & Jones + JJXX multibrand store in London last November.

Embroidery and other richly embellished denim a la Antik Denim and True Religion, who dominated the early-mid 00’s are also making a comeback, the latter of which had a sizeable presence at CIFF this year. 

 

Classic lines, bold artistic collaborations

 

Overall, the more classic lines were either committed to their simplicity or livened up with brightening rhinestone embellishments.

Exemplified on the couture runways at Paris fashion week, belts and other waist-accentuating accessories dominated Copenhagen’s Fashion Week.

In contrast, the more artistic brands differentiated by offering bold tailoring and strikingly bright patterns and color palettes, such as we saw at STAMM.exchange, Tapis Noir, and Essential Antwerp.

Marimekko surprised many by merging layers of muted and monochromatic pieces with its renowned playful patterns and palettes.

A stand out for us: Lords of Harlech’s all gender Barcelona Collection is perfection!

 

Essential Antwerp and Woodbird delivered inspiring patterns, pops of color and embellishments during CIFF 25 in Copenhagen.

We loved seeing whimsical design mashups that combined traditional concepts with unbridaled artistry, like we saw at the Créton booth, and artist collaborations, like we saw with Crystal Rainbow + Andrea Wan. In fact, CIFF and CPHFW’s X factor was squarely the multitude of collaborations, even among well-established brands.

Coming to a contemporary women's clothing store near you will be warm quilted coats with bold art collaborations such as this warm jacket from Crystal Rainbow, and muted skirts with unexpected pleating like this piece from Créton.

We also want to shout out our new friends at Sashka Project, in Germany, who brought incredibly chic Ukranian design brands like DAR ANN, EMBR. GEM, ATTIRE, and SEROTONINN to the CIFF show floor. 

 

And, of course, we want to give flowers to Julian Daynov who curated the NEUDEUTSCH brand experience at CIFF. This is how you create atmosphere within a convention center! It reminded us of the very best elements of concept store retail. 

We found something to suit our every mood and moment at CIFF!

Share the Post:

Related Posts

Meet Catecut founder & ceo, Heidrun Sigfusdottir, at CIFF- Copenhagen International Fashion Fair, 28-30 January 2025.

Catecut at CIFF

Heading to CIFF – Copenhagen International Fashion Fair? We are too!  We are excited to head to CIFF- Copenhagen International

Read More
fashion apparel retail rack with shopping bags stacked in front to demonstrate sales are up in retail and how catecut can reduce returns

Sales are up in fashion retail, but apparel returns are up too

A sharp increase in returns management spending in 2024 means apparel returns are cutting more deeply into overall per-sale revenue. Current solutions aren’t solving the returns problem, and in fact, may be increasing the consumer behavior of bracketing. The biggest gap in solving the returns problem, is addressing the mismatch between a garment’s cut and fit, and the shopper’s body structure.

Read More