Fashion holds a mirror up to the world, and wealth equality is one of the big issues of the day. While it has never been easy to be an independent designer, with conglomerates accumulating further assets and power it’s becoming even more challenging. As a result a number of organizations have focused their efforts on supporting emerging brands. Stateside there’s the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund and Fashion Trust U.S.; in Denmark there’s the Wessel & Vett prize, Scandinavian’s largest, which supports Danish designers.

Established by the Wessel & Vett foundation in memory of the founders of Magasin department stores, Emil Vett and Theodor Wessel, over the years this award has bolstered the success of Scandi brands including Cecilie Bahnsen, Saks Potts, and Anne Sofie Madsen. Nicklas Skovgaard took home the prize in 2025. The 15th award winner will be announced at the close of Copenhagen Fashion Week’s spring 2027 edition.

Instead of the entire bursary going to one brand, as has been the case in the past, the 2026 finalists—Berner Kühl, Bonnetje, Caro Editions, and O. Files—each received 75,000 DKK (about $11,000 / €10,000). The winner will be awarded 300,000 DKK ( about $47,000 / €40,000). In addition, the format has been rethought. Rather than bringing all designers to one location to present, last week 14 of the 16-strong jury (including yours truly) spent about two hours with each brand in their own spaces. This more personal approach encouraged dialogue and highlighted the mentoring aspect of the program.

The makeup of this year’s finalists is representative of where fashion is going globally. Berner Kühl and O. Files represent the continuing industry excitement in menswear. While all of these Danish brands work with sustainability, responsible design is central to Bonnetje’s practice. Caro Editions, meanwhile, leans into vintage and has a playfulness that’s stamped with the personality of its founder, the former model Caroline Bille Brahe.

Each of these brands is niche in its own way, due to size and/or approach to design. O. Files, for example, doesn’t follow the fashion calendar but releases collections in drops, and Caro Editions is mainly a made-to-order business. What unites them: They’re all grappling with how to get their work in front of buyers to boost sales, and how to scale without losing the individuality and authenticity that are the USP of their businesses.

Below, a cheat-sheet on the 2026 Wessel & Vett Prize finalists.

Berner Kühl

“We are always about evolution and not revolution with what we do. And we spend a lot of time talking about restraint and refinement.” —Frederik Berner Kühl

Frederik Berner Kühl founded his namesake menswear line in 2019 after graduating from Polimoda in Milan. His is a material-led brand with a minimal, almost ascetic aesthetic. “When people from the outside come in, they’re always like, ‘Oh, it’s Scandinavian simplicity and it is; Danish design and architecture is what I grew up in. But I don’t see [my work] as being particularly Danish. I think it resonates everywhere,” the designer said. A small, well-located store with studio space in the basement has helped Berner Kühl increase DTC and wholesale sales.

Bonnetje

“The suit is very much the core.” —Yoko Maja Hansen, Bonnetje

Anna Myntekær and Yoko Maja Hanse both graduated from Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam in 2021. (Before this, the former interned with a couture house and worked with Cecilie Bahnsen; the latter put in time at Maison Margiela under John Galliano.) The brand is built around the idea of deconstructing men’s suits and related items like shirts and briefcases to create feminine, and often eroticized, garments. “Suits can’t be recycled, so they have to be burned if they’re not used,” explains Myntekær, but “everything starts with the design; sustainability is just coming along with it.”

Caro Editions

“For me, making the clothes is also a lot [about] how wearing the clothes makes you feel.” —Caroline Bille Brahe, Caro Editions

At 13, Caroline Bille Brahe (née Brasch Nielsen) was scouted while on a school field trip and had a successful modeling career. Eight years in she moved back to Copenhagen and took some time figuring out what she wanted to do. Modeling, she said, “was nothing that fulfilled me because I couldn’t use my own creativity.” In the end, she stuck with fashion, but in a different capacity, founding Caro Editions in 2022. Since launch, Bille Brahe has experimented with wholesale and made-to-order business models. Now, most of her pieces are one-offs. “I love the one-of-a-kind vintage feel.”

O. Files

“We take daily life situations and feelings into consideration and basically translate them into the garments.” —Oscar Jardorf, O. Files

Oscar Jardorf was passionate about fashion, and creating contacts online, long before he graduated with a fashion management degree from Copenhagen School of Design and Technology. A hypebeast of sorts, Jardof brought his digital savvy to brand building when he launched O. Files in 2018. Following the streetwear model rather than the fashion calendar, the brand releases its collections via drops (about 10 a year). O. Files’s tenets, he explained, are traditional tailoring, “uniform codes,” and a “distinctive, disciplined playfulness,” which might take the form of an origami-inspired pleat on a pair of trousers.