Leaders from fashion, government, and sustainability sectors meet in Copenhagen to push for circular economy, transparency, and climate resilience.

Global Fashion Summit: Copenhagen Edition 2026, held from May 5–7 in Copenhagen, convened more than 1,000 stakeholders from across the global fashion ecosystem, including brands, retailers, NGOs, policymakers, manufacturers, innovators, and related industries.

The event was organised by Global Fashion Agenda, a non-profit focused on accelerating the transition toward a net positive fashion industry, and took place at the Copenhagen Concert Hall with additional side events across cultural venues in the city.

The summit was attended by Her Majesty Queen Mary of Denmark, Queen of Denmark, who is a long-standing patron of Global Fashion Agenda. She attended the Official Celebration Dinner held at the National Gallery of Denmark to mark the closing of the event.

The event opened with a keynote address by Ms Federica Marchionni, Chief Executive Officer of Global Fashion Agenda, who urged the industry to take responsibility for building resilience in a time of climate disruption, economic uncertainty, and technological change. She emphasised the need to rethink global value chains, prioritise product integrity over overproduction, and scale circular infrastructure while ensuring artificial intelligence supports human capability.

Ms Marchionni said the fashion industry is now at a critical crossroads where leadership will be defined by whether organisations actively drive transformation rather than react to it.

More than 140 speakers contributed to the summit, including leaders from major global companies and institutions such as Mr François-Henri Pinault, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Kering; Ms Virginie Viard, Artistic Director of Chanel; Mr Bernard Arnault, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of LVMH; Mr Helena Helmersson, Chief Executive Officer of H&M Group; Ms Rose Marcario, former Chief Executive Officer of Patagonia; Ms Alexander Lacik, Chief Executive Officer of Pandora; and representatives from the European Parliament.

Additional contributors included Ms Hélène Valade, Group Environment Development Director at LVMH, who participated in discussions on creative circularity and environmental intelligence.

Several major initiatives were unveiled during the summit. The “Fashion CFO Agenda 2026” was launched by Global Fashion Agenda in collaboration with Mr Emmanuel Faber, Chief Executive Officer of Boston Consulting Group (BCG). The report positions Chief Financial Officers as key drivers of sustainability integration within financial governance and long-term resilience planning.

Designer Mr Kevin Germanier, Founder of Maison GERMANIER, presented a Spring-Summer 2026 collection created from unsold materials from LVMH, transforming waste into sculptural upcycled couture pieces.

The GFA and PDS Ventures announced the winner of the 2026 Trailblazer Programme: Ms Sophia Chen, Founder of Synflux, who will receive equity investment and scaling support for circular fashion innovation.

The GFA and Visa revealed the Grand Prize Winner of the Visa Young Creators: Recycle the Runway programme: Ms Aisha Rahman, Founder of MARTAN, recognising emerging designers advancing circular fashion solutions.

Global Fashion Agenda also launched the “2030 Circularity Blueprint” in partnership with ReHubs, aiming to accelerate textile-to-textile recycling and support the transition toward a circular fashion economy in the European Union.

Ms Jennie Farmer, Chief Marketing Officer of Pandora, joined Ms Pamela Anderson, Global Brand Ambassador for Pandora, on stage to announce that Pandora will begin publishing the carbon footprint of each lab-grown diamond alongside traditional grading metrics such as cut, colour, clarity, and carat.

The summit also featured the Innovation Forum, which showcased 24 solution providers spanning materials innovation, production systems, and end-of-life technologies, and facilitated more than 450 curated industry introductions in collaboration with Ralph Lauren.

Leadership Roundtables included discussions on climate adaptation in luxury value chains, EU regulatory reporting, and circularity strategies, generating actionable insights for industry transformation.

Across all sessions, speakers emphasised that resilience in fashion requires collaboration, investment, and systemic redesign across global supply chains.

Source: Global Fashion Agenda