During Copenhagen Fashion Week 2026, the exhibition “People Make The Clothes, Clothes Make The People” retraces over half a century of research, innovation and sportswear through the most iconic garments from the CP Company archive.
There is no dress without the person who imagined it, built it and finally wore it. It is from this circular relationship that the exhibition with which CP Company retraces over fifty years of research during Copenhagen Fashion Week 2026 takes its title People Make The Clothes, Clothes Make The People.
In the spaces of Other Circle, an interdisciplinary platform dedicated to the meeting between design, fashion and contemporary culture, the exhibition tells the story of the Italian brand through the garments, techniques and intuitions that have defined its identity.
The title contains one of the founding principles of CP Company: behind every innovation there is always a human gesture. There are the hands of those who experiment with materials, the vision of designers and, finally, the people who choose a garment and transform it into a sign of belonging.
The archive as a laboratory of the future
The exhibition does not consider the archive as an immobile place, intended only for the preservation of memory. For CP Company it rather represents a living organism, continually questioned and reinterpreted; a study space from which new ideas, materials and design solutions can arise.
The itinerary is divided into two rooms. The first collects a selection of iconic garments sorted into thematic sections, capable of reconstructing the evolution of the brand from the Seventies to today. The story begins with the graphic experiments conducted by Massimo Osti on T-shirts and knitwear and continues with the most representative versions of the Goggle Jacket and the Explorer Jacket, two garments that made the CP Company language immediately recognisable.
Alongside the silhouettes that have become part of the history of sportswear, there is space for research into materials and treatments, from Terra Dyed to garment-dyed GORE-TEX. Each creation also testifies to the contribution of the designers who, after Osti, guided the creative direction of the brand, including Moreno Ferrari, Alessandro Pungetti, Paul Harvey and Leonardo Fasolo.
The items displayed as research documents
Even the setup becomes part of the narrative. The arrangement of the garments in the display cases in fact takes up an exhibition method developed by Massimo Osti and presented for the first time in 1987, on the occasion of the retrospective organized in Berlin for the fifteen years of the brand.
The garments are shown as true archival documents: not just objects to contemplate, but evidence of creative processes, experiments and technical solutions. Also featured in the exhibition created for the fiftieth anniversary of CP Company in 2021, this exhibition system returns to Copenhagen as an integral element of the brand’s identity.
The magic of garment dyeing
The second room is entirely dedicated to garment dyeing, the technique that perhaps more than any other has contributed to defining the aesthetics of CP Company. Unlike dyeing applied to the fabric before making it, the process affects the already assembled garment, producing chromatic depths, irregularities and shades that are difficult to replicate.
At the center of the space, a cylindrical installation presents the same jacket through a progression of different colours. Repetition makes visible the ability of the technique to modify the perception of an identical object: the structure remains unchanged, while the color transforms its character each time.
