Forget Basic Black Puffers—In Copenhagen Fashion Week Street Style, Over-the-Top Outerwear Reigns
Personal style and staying warm aren't mutually exclusive here.
When I bump into Disabled& founder and Marie Claire Style at Large contributor April Lockhart at Copenhagen Fashion Week, I have to compliment her winter coat before I can dig into the racks of new collections around us. In an already well-dressed crowd, she's a beacon in a peony pink lace trench coat. (It's Burberry via TheRealReal, she'll later reveal.) Never mind the dusting of snow outside and the windchill only a penguin could love: The forecast wasn't getting her—or her street style potential—down.
"Copenhagen winter can be pretty grey, so I wanted my coats to do a lot of the talking," she tells me.
The more shows I attended after our chat, the more I noticed others embracing a similar outfit philosophy. Copenhagen Fashion Week's Fall/Winter 2026 street style season, it turns out, was firmly anti-puffer coat. Throughout my time in the Danish capital, I clocked outerwear in every color of the rainbow and type of (faux) fur: sidewalk-dusting shearling with contrasting collars, sequin-coated longline toppers, mafioso-inspired minks, Saks Potts Foxy coats.
Yes, the temperatures were frigid. Yes, the sun set at 4 P.M. No, not a single guest took that as an excuse to settle for a plain-old puffer.
No one has ever accused Copenhagen Fashion Week street style of being boring and gotten away with it. Part of this city's fashion reputation was built on the whimsy of its street style, where bubbly Cecilie Bahnsen dresses and floral Pico rosette hair clips are more common than jeans and T-shirts. Still, it's impressive—and instructive—to see how many ways insiders managed to stay warm without reaching for a coat with NASA-level heat technology built in. It naturally lightened the mood during peak seasonal depression hours.
"There’s something about seeing bright blues, greens, and pinks in the middle of winter that just boosts your serotonin," Lockhart says, "especially against such a stark, neutral backdrop."
A menagerie of animal prints—leopard, tiger, zebra, fawn—were minimalists' way in without succumbing to more out-there colors. And they made an equally big impression.
"I saw this incredible [Roberto] Cavalli cheetah-print jacket and I literally had to ask to take a photo so I could reverse image search it later," Lockhart adds.
Each day overflowed with the sorts of coats you can see from miles away (or from across one of Copenhagen's historic squares). Arriving at Paolina Russo, I was momentarily blinded by the owner of a radioactive green trench coat posing outside the entrance. But Noorunisa Khan, a London-based photographer shooting Copenhagen Fashion Week street style, likes zooming in on the tiny touches that personalize an eye-catching coat even more.
"I’ve seen a lot of people embellishing their coats with broaches or some kind of jewels to add a bit of sparkle," she tells me after look-spotting through all of day two. "In my opinion, when it’s done with some minimalism, it can elevate a look."
More isn't just more with embellishments—it's true of layers, too. Heidi Jones, a photographer attending her sixth Copenhagen Fashion Week, kept track of how guests add more comfy-cozy fabrics to their already chic furs.
"I also love the simple trick of tying a knit around the waist underneath a jacket or coat," she says. "[It's] a really simple way to layer and add an extra element to a look."
Some show-goers weren't satisfied with just styling themselves from the neck down: Balancing practicality and personal style is a head-to-toe affair here.
"When you can’t show your outfit because it’s necessary to wear a floor-length coat, your head is the most obvious choice [for] accessorizing," Khan says.
The practicality-inclined guests chose cutesy knit balaclavas and snoods. The glamazons added a towering fur hat, a crocheted swim cap, or a ladylike pillbox hat. (Bonus points if its color or print boldly clashed with the coat's color palette.)
Lest you thought these traffic-stopping coats had been picked out months ago: My seat-mate at The Garment's runway show was swaddled in a mint green, floor-length, faux fur coat so luxurious, I had to ask, "Where did you get that?"—only for her to admit she bought it at a secondhand store just hours before the day's programming began.
For me, the past three days of street style confirmed dopamine dressing is the cure to the winter fashion week blues. Below, see more of the best street style moments from Copenhagen Fashion Week's Fall/Winter 2026 season. They've inspired me to hang up my worn-out black puffer jacket for good.
Copenhagen Fashion Week Street Style Fall/Winter 2026
