Emma Sofie, I Like Your Style

What is
“I like your style”?

In this series we ask fashion lovers to share some of their favourite outfits and talk us through what inspires and influences the way they dress and shop.

Who is Emma?

I guess Emma Sofie is a brand as well as a person, both driven by a fierce love of wearing and creating clothes. Before the brand Emma Sofie existed, Emma Sofie (me, the person) studied Fashion Design at AUT with no idea that I wanted to start my own brand one day. I just knew that I loved making outfits as much as I loved shopping for them. Vintage shopping has always been and continues to be, my favourite activity. I just love that you can find something totally unique and put together an outfit like you would a painting; step by step. This is what I love about making clothes, too. The endless possibilities and new discoveries. Sometimes I’ll see a stranger walking down the street wearing the most counter-intuitive mix of colours, patterns or shapes, and against all odds it just works. When that happens I’ll usually head straight to my studio to create or straight into a vintage shop to find something similar to what I saw, forever attempting to cultivate the perfect wardrobe.

Follow Emma at @emmanielsen___

Name two of your favourite designers (one from Aotearoa NZ/Australia and one from Denmark) and explain why.

One of my favourite designers from Aotearoa is Emma Jing. I really admire the way she uses different fabric techniques to elevate her garments, like smocking, pleating and dyeing. Her pieces are incredibly unique and must take so much time and effort to make. Emma often collaborates with other local designers which I think is such an important thing to do. It promotes the many incredible small businesses around us that offer an alternative to the fast fashion conglomerate, which currently dominates our habits as consumers. I think Kerne Milk here in Denmark embodies the concept of slow fashion just as well. Kerne Milk is a small Copenhagen brand founded by Marie Mark who, like me, started the brand from her own apartment before expanding. Kerne Milk now has a line called ‘Scraps’, where they use all cut-off fabric scraps from production to create new styles. This just adds to their already incredible use of colour and fabric pairing.

Personal style can be about how we want to present ourselves visually to the world — how do you intend for your clothes to present you?

It took me a long time to find my own personal style because I’ve always been drawn to so many different types of aesthetics. I think my personality is similar in this way, I get along with all different kinds of people and don’t have super set opinions or rigid stances on things. I’m kind of fluid in this way, I observe the world more so than I react to it. So my personal style was also very fluid for a time, constantly changing. One day I’d be super into colour, and wear every single colourful thing I owned in one outfit, thinking I’d reached the pinnacle of fashion. The next day I’d see someone pull off an all-black look, and think they looked so chic that it would make me rethink every colourful outfit I’d ever worn. Today I think my style is more of a balanced mix of everything I like. I dip my toe in every pond, rather than dive in head first.

Share your first fashion/style related memory from childhood.

I will never forget my before kindergarten/primary school morning routine. Roll out of bed, check what clothes mum has laid out for me to wear, and then proceed to argue my way into wearing what I want instead. What I discovered much later on, based on photo evidence from that time, was that I should have definitely worn the outfits my mum picked out. Because they were much better than mine. My mum knew what she was doing back then. If Instagram had existed at the time, she would have plastered hers with photos of my sister and me in our colour-coordinated outfits.

Who and what most influences and inspires your style?

My style is very much inspired by others. I think I’ve subconsciously always absorbed aspects of how others dress and made them my own. When I was younger it was always my mum that influenced my stylistic choices. She was SO good at putting cool outfits together, and playing around with colours, textures and accessories. I think she taught me to view getting dressed as something fun and playful, without even realising it. She also taught me to recognise the difference between cheap and expensive clothes, but this was more of an intentional lesson. It’s always worth investing in good pieces, she would say. This is where vintage shopping really came in clutch for someone like me who had limited funds but an unlimited desire for nice clothes. And the vintage shopping environment is the best place to find inspiration. I’ve met the coolest people, both shoppers and shop girls, that I’ve taken little stylistic bits and pieces from. The way they’ve played with layering, colour compositions or made really old 80s-style shoulder pads actually look cool?

Do you have a favourite film for costume design and fashion references?

This is probably a very obvious opinion that I share with a large chunk of the world’s female population, but Sex and the City, the series, taught me a lot about women’s fashion, and how sexy it can be while still remaining somewhat casual. And also how dependent this sex appeal can be on one’s choice of shoe. In an episode in one of the earlier seasons, Carrie Bradshaw wears this odd combination of an oversized blazer with very fitted three-quarter pants, which would have looked terrible if she hadn’t paired it with these super cute pointed-toe kitten heels. And of course a really good bag. But the shoes are what ties the whole look together, and make the odd pairing look like a very thought-out, informed choice. I feel like Carrie has many thought-provoking outfits like this throughout the show. At first glance, you think she’s absolutely missed the boat, but upon closer inspection, you realise that each element of the outfit is there for a reason, and strangely complements the other strange elements in their strangeness. It’s almost like a science.

How do you think the Danish landscape, surroundings and culture feeds into your own aesthetic, if at all? And if you don't feel it does, then what does?

One notable thing that’s changed about the way I dress is that a lot of my outfits now have to be bike friendly. Which means for practical reasons I’m kind of limited to pants and a cropped jacket on the days that I bike to work. Luckily there is no shortage of pants nor cropped jackets in the world, and it’s been a fun challenge trying to reinvent that same combination again and again in new ways. We’re on the brink of winter here in Denmark, and it is truly the season of accessories; beanies, scarves, mitts, leg warmers, ear muffs, and even knitted balaclavas. In other words, the perfect pieces to spice up a repetitive outfit. Having grown up in Auckland I’ve never really been forced to accessorise with scarves and beanies to (put dramatically) not freeze to death, so it’s like a whole new world for me to explore, which I’m really excited about.

Do you feel the pandemic has affected the way you dress? If so, how? If not, why not?

During the lockdown, I really began questioning what the point of having lots of beautiful clothes is, if they never get to see the light of day. And this thought begs the question: who is it that I really get dressed for each day? Myself, or others? It’s kind of the same as asking if something is considered art if no one sees it. If there’s no one to perceive something as beautiful, then isn’t it just a thing that exists? So I guess I have to conclude that I get dressed each day knowing that I’ll be perceived by others as soon as I walk out the door. And I’m not gonna lie, I wouldn’t mind being considered a piece of art by someone I walk past on the street? Thank god not everyone cares as much about what they wear as I do. If they did, humankind would not have made it to space already. I mean, no one would get anything done? Sometimes I feel really superficial for caring about something as trivial as clothes, especially when my 5th outfit change makes me late for something. But I’ve honestly spent way too much time and money on clothes at this point in my life for me to turn back now. I’ll be having outfit crises till I die.

Your most embarrassing fashion moment to date?

There are so many. When I was 20 I dedicated a couple of months of my life to trying to become a fashion influencer on Instagram (I’m not proud). I never succeeded with it because, for one, the outfits I posted were really, really bad. And secondly, my friends and family eventually got sick of taking photos of these really bad outfits for me (fair enough). But I think the outfits were bad because I hadn’t figured out how I liked to dress yet. So they ended up being these incohesive explosions of colour and shapes that I’m very glad I was able to delete from both Instagram and my memory. And I hope I never actually ended up influencing anyone to dress like that.

Your most iconic fashion moment to date?

I don’t think I’ve made or worn anything downright iconic (yet?), but I dream of wearing something so outrageous and borderline inappropriate (think Rihanna’s crystal dress 2014) to some event, maybe my birthday, or a celebration of some kind where I’m the guest of honour, that people talk about it for years to come.

Best vintage stores in Auckland and Copenhagen?

Chamoi Vintage (Copenhagen)

Crushes (Auckland)

What are the best runway shows that happened during your lifetime?

Elie Saab’s old haute couture shows from 2003 and 2004 include some of the most beautiful dresses/gowns I’ve ever seen.