Over and Under: Stem’s SS26 Collection weaves a new future for fashion
London based makeup artist and beauty editor Astrid Kearney reports for ZOOT from Copenhagen Fashion Week SS26, diving deep into the season’s standout shows with rare backstage access and a sharp eye for detail. Blending beauty insight with designer storytelling, she connects with the creatives and philosophies behind the collections.
This is all about the presentation of Stem, a zero-waste woven textile fashion brand, founded by textile designer Sarah Brunnhuber.
Article Astrid Kearney
Photos James Cochrane
Illustrations Louise Boughton from Drawing Cabaret Couture
Sarah Brunnhuber, the visionary behind Stem, leads us back to the elemental pulse of craft, the basket.
Baskets have always been a particular point of reference and inspiration to me,” she reflects. “This collection started with me using scraps from the studio to weave a basket. In the process, I recognised that it represented weaving at a truly tangible scale, at its most elemental; over and under, over and under, over and under.
Sarah Brunnhuber
In a world drowning in noise and haste, Stem’s Over and Under and Over and Under collection arrives at Copenhagen Fashion Week like a whispered hymn, a sacred ritual that honours the ancient art of weaving as a path to slow down, reflect, and remake.
Born from studio remnants and shaped by the hands of master Danish willow weavers, the basket becomes more than form. It is the heartbeat of the collection, a three-dimensional prayer that holds a question haunting our times: can we find meaning in under-producing, in making less but with profound care and intention.
The silhouettes ripple with Stem’s signature Pulling Technique, fabric gathered, tensioned, and sculpted without a single wasted thread. These garments emerge from the loom’s logic itself: sleeves and necklines woven-in, hems left raw and dancing with fringes, volumes created by knots that invite the wearer’s personal choreography. “I’m on a mission for people to understand a little bit more about how their garments are made,” Brunnhuber explains, “and to understand these motions but at a smaller scale.” This is clothing as living, breathing structure.
Stenim, Stem’s visionary answer to denim, enters the scene, a natural fibre, zero-waste reinvention of one of the world’s most ubiquitous textiles. Patchwork pieces, born entirely from offcuts and studio remnants, celebrate the poetry of constraint.
The 100 Hour Dress stands as a testament to devotion, and the woven floral motifs bloom not from surface decoration, but from the very fabric’s warp and weft, a quiet homage to Northern European traditions.
The palette is a prayer to process, not just pigment: black, white, denim, and a luminous purple dyed through Octarine Bio’s PurePalette™, a groundbreaking, 100% bio-based fermentation dye, free from the toxins that plague conventional fashion.
Beauty at Stem is untamed and pure. Hair is unbound, organic, woven through with real scraps of cotton from the collection itself, a living extension of the fabric’s story. Skin glows transparent, flushed with life’s own rhythm, while lips wear a dark, unapologetic mark, a bold punctuation to softness, a declaration that reverence and rebellion can dance together.
But this is no runway spectacle. Stem’s SS26 presentation is a workshop, a sanctuary. Forty guests gather around Danish master weaver Mai Hvid Jørgensen, their hands weaving willow strands from her garden. Models move quietly among them, a living tableau where basket and cloth, structure and story, fibre and form converge. This is a moment of mindfulness, a shared meditation on making, unmaking, and remaking.
Beneath it all pulses Stem Mill, a bold vision for a research-driven, local, low-impact production hub in Denmark. Stem is not just a brand, it is a blueprint for a future where transparency, collaboration, and slowness are revolutionary acts.
Over and Under is not just a collection, it is an invocation to slow down, to cherish the rhythm of the hand, the memory of the material, and the power of making less but making profoundly. In Stem’s world, fashion becomes a woven poem, whispered on the loom, shared with the world.
To boot…
STEM
www.stem.page I @stem______
“Our novel zero-waste woven textile system eliminates garment production waste. A Stem garment is made from (recycled) natural fibres and produced using our unique weaving, cutting and sewing technique. Every Stem garment is fully biodegradable. All materials are carefully chosen. We use 100% natural fibres, including recycled cotton (strengthening the yarn by blending it with 50% virgin cotton) and Tencel™ Lyocell thread made from eucalyptus pulp. Our trimmings (zips, buttons) are all second hand, deadstock or biodegradable.”
Copenhagen Fashion Week
@cphfw
ASTRID KEARNEY, makeup artist, creative & writer
www.astridkearney.com I @astridkearneymakeup
Read more from Astrid for ZOOT here.
