Jutland Station interviewer Christian Chapelle om HEADSTART FASHION: A new project aims to turn Aarhus into a hub for both big fashion brands and up-and-comers and boost today’s largest creative industry in Denmark



By Katherine Dunn
How do you make a fashion capital?
That’s the question behind a new start-up organization that aims to turn Aarhus into a hub for both big fashion brands and up-and-comers.
Headstart Fashion is part of a funding project by the Midtjylland’s More.Creative initiative to support five of the region’s creative industries over the next three years, including film and architecture.
The project, which is managed under Aarhus Kommune, began in March with a 200,000 kr budget and a mandate to boost the industry.
Several partners have already joined the initiative, including companies such as the sports brand Hummel as well as institutions Teko Design and Business School and DAFI (Danish Fashion Institute).
“We already have, in Denmark in general, and in Aarhus, we have firms that prove that you can make a lot of money in this industry,” says Christian Chapelle, who runs the program through the Mayor’s Office. “But on the other hand we have a lot of small companies that need a lot of help to move their businesses forward.”
Slated to become an independent body by 2015, the project will try to provide both business expertise and a sense of community to smaller companies struggling to gain a foothold, he says.
Headstart has already hosted a fashion show in collaboration with Kopenhagen Fur – the first of it’s kind in the city, says Chapelle. Future ideas include hosting more events and possibly starting a fashion “hub” where small companies and designers can meet.
Furthering interaction
It’s also a matter of getting both big and small companies, who currently “don’t talk at all,” he says, to interact on their home turf. “They might not meet in Aarhus or in the region, but they would meet in Copenhagen, or they would meet internationally.”
The Danish fashion industry is the largest of the country’s creative industries, with an annual turnover of 45 billion kroner annually, according to the city of Aarhus.
In central Jutland, the creative industries have a collective turnover of 49 billion kroner, employing 8% of all private sector employees. The region is also home to some of the country’s biggest fashion companies, including mega-brand Bestseller.
As Denmark’s largest fashion company, Bestseller owns brands including Vero Moda and Jack & Jones, with a net turnover of about 2.6 billion euros (19.4 billion kr) and 3,300 employees in Denmark alone.

Central Jutland is home to some of the country’s biggest fashion companies, including mega-brands Bestseller and Hummel

Headquartered in Brande, the company is currently constructing a building in the Aarhus harbour, designed by famed Danish architecture firm C.F. Møller.
The region is also host to sportswear brand Hummel, shoe brand Shoe the Bear, and multi-brand company Metropol. But Chapelle says the majority of the industry consists of small companies. Of Aarhus’ 348 fashion companies, 90% have less than 10 employees, and 62% have no employees at all.
“I think a lot of them have the same problems,” Chapelle says. “And within the creative industry, I think it’s very common that they have difficulties making growth.”
This is where Headstart comes in, he says, supported by the School of Creative Industries at TEKO Design + Business

Headstart Fashion seminar at Hummel’s facility in Aarhus (Photo: Headstart Fashion)

at VIA University College, which emphasizes business sense in design school.
“Starting a business is daunting for anyone,” says Anne Mette Zachariassen, who is manager of the school. “We therefore have a strong focus on entrepreneurship across all educational programs and in our student business incubators.”
But for designers, growing a business remains challenging, especially when Danish companies often need to develop an international outlook from inception.
And for bigger companies, Chapelle says he hopes the project can help them attract talent and, by increasing the profile of Aarhus, convince talented designers to stay or move to the city, rather than heading for Copenhagen, Berlin or London.
Although Bestseller doesn’t have trouble attracting talent, says Jesper Stubkier of corporate communications at Bestseller, a higher profile would be a benefit to the company.
“That’s one of the big benefits of it, if we can create this idea of a ‘fashion capital’, that Aarhus is up there when it comes to fashion, of course that will attract more candidates in general, which will also benefit us,” says Stubkier.
But he says while the company will support the project, they are still waiting to see what the initiatives will actually entail. “So far it has been somewhat indefinite, and not very concrete.”
Chapelle says the new year is expected to bring a drastic increase in budget for the project, and a clearer sense of what the program’s role will be.
A report by TEKO, to be released in January, is also expected to shed more light on the challenges the local industry is facing.
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Katherine Dunn is a Canadian journalist who has worked for the Toronto Star, the Canadian Press, and Frame Publishers, a publisher of art and design magazines based in Amsterdam.