The Designer Interview: Ditte Reffstrup Of Ganni
If you’ve ever worn a puff-sleeved dress with chunky shoes, or a statement-collared blouse under a fluffy knit, chances are you’ve been influenced by Ganni, the cult Danish label that’s become synonymous with a unique blend of frivolity and practicality. GILLIAN BRETT talks to its creative director, DITTE REFFSTRUP, and discovers why the brand’s DNA is imbued with both heart and soul
The first time I met Ganni creative director Ditte Reffstrup in person, we were dancing around her kitchen at a post-show party celebrating her spring 2018 collection. “It just always starts with music somehow,” she tells me now – sadly, we are not twirling around her house this time; Reffstrup is in her Copenhagen HQ, speaking via video call. “It gives me energy and inspiration to listen to music, go to a concert or just dive back into old libraries that can always kick-start a feeling in me – which is then a starting point for the whole collection.”
Reffstrup heads up the cult Danish fashion label with her husband Nicolaj, whom she met at a house party 18 years ago and married after seven months of dating. At the time, she was working as a fashion buyer, while he was in tech. Reffstrup first became involved with the company in 2009, when she was invited to consult on product expansion at Ganni – then a relatively unknown cashmere label – but the couple decided to buy it a few years later, adding statement day dresses, irreverent prints, pie-crust-collar blouses and playful accessories to the offering, quickly turning the brand into the go-to for women who love pieces with personality.
The global community of loyal fans includes women such as Danish supermodel Helena Christensen and American actor Kate Bosworth, who started the #GanniGirls hashtag on Instagram in 2015 when they used it to post a photo of themselves together, decked out in the brand. It’s a tag that, at the time of writing, has more than 84K images associated with it. For Reffstrup, it’s become much more than viral marketing and is symbolic of what Ganni stands for. “I think it’s important to say Ganni Girls is plural,” she asserts. “It’s much more about a feeling or state of mind than anything else; it’s not a specific person.” Christensen and Bosworth are just two of the #GanniGirls gang, which also includes Malia Obama and Hailey Bieber. Even Beyoncé is a #GanniGirl.
“In the beginning, we were only two people, and now we have a design team of around 10, who come from all over the world… I think you can see that Ganni has evolved a lot, but it has the same DNA
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“One of the things I’m very proud of is it started like that and it’s still like that,” says Reffstrup of the brand’s universal popularity. “Of course, the collection has evolved a lot, also in terms of the quality. In the beginning, we were only two people, and now we have a design team of around 10, who come from all over the world. I think you can see that Ganni has evolved a lot but it has the same DNA.”
The SS22 Higher Love collection is filled with puff-sleeved day-to-night dresses, pastel-yellow denim separates, and floral prints across everything from turtlenecks to denim shirts. Y2K-style ruching threads the collection together, a detail that was inspired by the hair scrunchies Reffstrup noticed a lot of her team wearing on their wrists in the office. Donning an iridescent ruched dress for the PORTER photoshoot, she describes it as “so easy to wear every day, but I’ll also wear it with lipstick and a nice shoe [for evening]… Pink is a color that goes through all our collections, and the pink sequinned dress is just something that puts a smile on your face.”
“I really want people to feel welcome [in my home] – like with Ganni, I want people to [not be] afraid of going into a Ganni store
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Shot in her beautiful home in Copenhagen’s eastern suburb of Østerbro, which she and Nicolaj share with their three children – Betty Lou, 12, Jens Otto, nine, and Rita Sophie, four – the colorful decor (inspired by vintage World of Interiors magazines) is a clear extension of Reffstrup’s eclectic eye. “For me, your home should be welcoming. I hate when you enter a house and you feel your shoulders are suddenly like this because it’s too polished,” she says, drawing hers up dramatically. “I really want people to feel welcome – like with Ganni, I want people to [not be] afraid of going into a Ganni store.”
“I think that’s something we learnt during the pandemic, that you just want to be able to embrace yourself and be like ‘Okay, this is my age, or this is my size, this is just me’, and you want to express yourself and [not] hide yourself
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Chez Reffstrup, candy-striped curtains and ice cream-colored walls mingle with more functional furnishings, reflecting the espousal of frivolity and practicality that define the Ganni vibe. Take the flat shoes she pairs with her sequin dress: “It’s a Ganni classic, where you’re mixing an occasion dress with a pair of rubber clogs,” she quips.
However you choose to style it, it’s a sexy dress – one of many in the collection – that chimes perfectly with our post-lockdown predilection for showing some skin. “I think that’s something we learnt during the pandemic; that you just want to be able to embrace yourself and be like ‘Okay, this is my age, or this is my size, this is just me’, and you want to express yourself and [not] hide yourself.”
What also makes this dress special is that it’s made from recycled satin. Owing to some steadfast sustainability ambitions – or what the brand prefers to call ‘responsibility’ ambitions – 92 percent of the collection has been more ethically made. Ganni deems a garment or accessory as ‘responsible’ if at least 50 percent of the composition is certified recycled, proven lower-impact or organic. In the spirit of transparency, the brand launched Ganni Lab in 2020 to test and track how it is minimizing its social and environmental impact, along with a @Ganni.Lab Instagram account to document the journey and publicly hold itself accountable.
“I think it’s important to say Ganni Girls is plural. It’s much more about a feeling or state of mind than anything else
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“When we set up the Ganni Lab, we were at a point where we were like, we need to talk about it because it’s something we’re talking about as a whole company every day – it’s everything from the product, the sourcing, to our lunch [Ganni has an in-house vegetarian chef, as well as a green restaurant policy], to how we ship. It is a very big thing and one of the core things of Ganni, so we wanted to talk about it, but we also wanted to be transparent about how difficult a journey it is; all the victories but also all the challenges.” Right now, Reffstrup is excited by the vegan leathers the brand has been trialing, including Vegea, which is made from grape skins, and Mylo, which comes from mushrooms.
With a busy global brand and a “pretty hectic” family life to juggle, Reffstrup finds moments of solitude listening to music on her 25-minute bike ride to and from the office each day, for which she eagerly plans playlists. Right now, those playlists are filled with ’80s and ’90s songs by Duran Duran and Depeche Mode – tracks that are equally perfect for when you just want to put on a sparkly dress and dance around your kitchen.
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