Personal style with Josefine Madsen
As young as 5 years old, my friend Josefine Madsen already had a strong sense of what she liked and did not like to wear. Stricken by the fierce injustice of pairing those tights with that top, Josefine’s cries would resound through her family home in Denmark as her mother tried to wrangle her into an outfit - any outfit - for school. Eventually, her mother realised the quickest way to get Josefine and her brother out the door on time was to let Josefine pick out her own clothes.
Meeting Josefine on my first day in the office, her bold jewellery, meticulously slicked back hair, and floral silky top stood out against the plain blue or white shirts everyone else was wearing. Drumming her nails against the countertop, she leant over the breakfast bar and proceeded to tell me about her dramatic morning with a candour I found surprising and refreshing.
Every time I saw her, we would talk about fashion, with topics ranging from the problem of sustainability to the joy of making your own clothes. Josefine’s personal style included an ability to integrate unique pieces into her office wardrobe: her eye-catching necklaces, thrifted jackets, and hand-sewn dresses presented a truly personal take on corporate style in the City of London.
I was so surprised by Josefine’s ability to put so much of her personality in how she dressed day after day, and I wanted to know where this came from. I asked if I could interview her.
“I’d describe my style as eclectic minimalism,” shares Josefine when I interview her over lunchtime. “I know those two words clash. I like to pair items that are loud — screaming, even — with things that are more muted.” Most of Josefine’s wardrobe is composed of clothes she has purchased second-hand or made herself. This also brings in the eclectic: “finding little gems from all over the place makes my wardrobe the mix that it is”.
Josefine’s personal style has been heavily influenced by her experiences growing up in Denmark. Spending her early teenage years in and around Copenhagen, Josefine enjoyed passing time by picking her way through the Danish charity shops. One of her favourite finds to this day is a vintage fur coat that she still wears. “Outerwear carries particular weight in Copenhagen. It’s so cold that your coat may need to be your outfit for 50% of your day. Your clothes need to work with the elements.”
Josefine and her friends in Copenhagen experimented with combining less practical pieces that they liked with outfits with outfits that enabled them to zip around the city on their bikes with ease and protect them from the weather. “We’d hike up long skirts with hair ties and then remove the hair ties when we got off our bikes,” Josefine recalls. “I feel like it was Scandi girls who brought wearing cutesy, girly dresses with sneakers into fashion: it’s so much more practical than riding a bike in heels.” One of Josefine’s thrifted finds recently found its way into Swedish singer Zara Larsson’s wardrobe.
Since moving to London 8 years ago, Josefine has found herself incorporating more “big city” elements into her style, including wearing heels to dinner for the first time and “generally dressing a bit more fancy” than the casual, practical, and seemingly effortless versatility she found in Copenhagen.
“There are different types of casual, and Copenhagen-girl casual might look more high-effort than the average London-girl casual,” says Josefine. “Take a really basic outfit: white trainers, jeans, a shirt. The stereotypical Copenhagen girl’s take on that might be to wear sneakers in a bright colourway with some jeans — probably Levis in a light-blue or mid- colour — and a shirt with puff sleeves in an interesting silhouette. The shirt would be crisp and high quality, perhaps a bit boxier and more oversized, or maybe it has some lace. They might wear that with a high quality wool knit, maybe one with a cool pattern. That’s it, but there’s a bit more quality to it, a bit more thought put into it. It’s those differences that make ‘casual’ in Denmark feel a bit more styled.”
“A big part of what’s great about Denmark are some of our designers, our architects, our style,” she adds.
Josefine inherited an interest in fabrics and clothes from her mother who taught her how to sew, her father who taught her about quality materials, and her grandmother who often sent spare pieces of material Josefine’s way. Josefine enjoys experimenting with whatever materials she has to hand: some of her favourite creations include a dress [pictured] made out of bedsheets she found in a charity shop in Norfolk and a jumpsuit made out of her grandmother’s curtains.
“[Style is] a way to express yourself,” says Josefine. “Why does it matter more what I’m reading versus what I’m wearing? Is what I’m reading somehow more related to my brain? Whether you care about it or not, what to wear is still a choice most people make every morning.”
Josefine has now moved back to Denmark, and her presence in the office will be sorely missed. I look forward to seeing how her style continues to evolve in her new surroundings, and how, in turn, she might influence those surroundings by being exactly who she is and wearing what she wants. Bringing the outside in, and bringing the inside out. Clothes can be deeply personal and interpersonal, an interwoven tapestry; a way of showing who we are, or bringing us closer to who we hope we might become.
All photos have been provided by Josefine and feature outfits she has made.