Best of Copenhagen Fashion Week

Big hair was huge at Copenhagen Fashion Week; designers like Goya paired bold volume with the ongoing trend for unconventional hues. Against the smooth, long lines of her clothes, afro-inspired coiffure set a cool contrast.

Goya's show, called "La Parade Merveilleuse," provided a deviation from the traditional neutral monochromes that characterize many Scandinavian style staples. Faded pastel watercolor prints, roomy fits and metallic embellishments dominated the shows with a mature ease, but the models' unearthly appearances – faces blackened with ink and glitter or dotted with gold studs –  gave the entire affair an avant-garde twist.

Copenhagen Fashion Week Spring 2012 kicked off with a flare of martialistic power at Freja Dalsjö. As video collages of black-clad female armies flickered in the background, the designer's real-life warriors towered down the runway, looking immaculately turned out for combat.

Many of Dalsjö's strongest looks featured sci-fi silhouettes, with spine-like protusions growing from the seams of the dresses like dystopian architecture. Here, the designer herself, wearing one of her extraterrestrial creations, grins approvingly as she observes her catwalk spectacle unfold.

All eyes were on Dalsjö as the "opening act" of Copenhagen Fashion Week, but she kept her own gaze firmly focused on a doomed but decadent vision of the future. The models often wore leather visors or, as seen here, showy black feathered headpieces, mirroring the nightmare Art Deco luxury of the Metropolis.

Danish design icon Henrik Vibskov provided the week's strangest entertainment, ending Day One with a frosty 10 p.m. showing in the courtyard of Charlottenborg, a famous Copenhagen mansion and base of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. A lolling, inflatable, spiked tongue greeted the hundreds of spectators as thundering music echoed through the chambers. The fashions hadn't even showed yet but the oneiric, transportive mood had already been cast.

Vibskov poses between two mysterious masked male assistants, who carried out the surreal unveiling of the Spring 2013 installation.

The girls at Anne Sofie Madsen flaunted an alien pixie likeness to Canadian musician Grimes. Madsen later described her concept for the show as "decaying fantasy." It was an elegant and creepy showing, the fashion show equivalent of falling into a broken music box, tarnished ballerinas and all. Madsen's prints depicted girlish fantasies as haunted vestiges (pop surrealist Mark Ryden would be proud), while her dresses bore the hallmarks of Rodarte's design DNA.

Candy skeleton girls emerge from hair and makeup backstage at Madsen.

Wood Wood, one of Scandinavia's most popular young brands, astutely captured the "Summer of Love" spirit with their Spring 2013 showing. Danish design tenets – functionalism paired with color-blocking – shone through on the eclectic looks. It felt geared towards a jaunt in the Nordic countryside – layered knits, caps, backpacks and all.

The hectic behind-the-scenes view at Wood Wood, a show held in a warehouse in the industrial outerskirts of Copenhagen.

Perhaps the most innovatively executed show of Copenhagen Fashion Week, Soulland situated their Spring 2013 presentation in an labyrinthine old Danish villa, forcing attendees to gingerly navigate the steep stairs in their heels. Fittingly, the Hedi Slimane-worthy skinny menswear looks were among the more formal of the week; at one point, we imagined creating a razor-sharp synth act from the most crisply dressed models.

Adding to the Kraftwerkian man/machine vibe was the incorporation of the Soulland app, a fun feature for iPhone-wielding attendees: users could "scan' each male model for more data on his look, including video footage with closeups. There was something unsettling about scanning a human being like an object about to be bought, but that was probably the point.

Menswear specialist Asger Juel Larsen christened his Spring 2013 showing "Goth Legion," a catchy prescription for what to keep in mind while viewing the collection. "Goth" certainly made its most obvious influences clear, from the skull motifs and urban Grim Reaper silhouettes on the runway to the crackling scraps of industrial noise that swept through the room. There was also a playfulness to the macabre elements, a sick little wink.

The colors, like omnipresent acid green, felt indebted to Nineties rave culture (with some of the models resembling the Prodigy's Keith Flint, devil horns and nose rings and all) and horrorcore rap. The hints were everywhere, especially in Larsen's solo womenswear looks; he will be one of Copenhagen's most notorious international fashion exports before long.

Bondage chokers appeared on numerous runways in Copenhagen, including at Larsen's, where they looked especially deviant on his brooding men.

A look combining the grim wit and extreme motifs of Larsen's "Goth Legion" collection.

Moonspoon Saloon is as close as the Danes get to "zany," with their design team fitting into the weird humor corner of fashion dominated by Jeremy Scott and Henry Holland. From body cages to Buffalo platforms to full-blown jester outfits, Spring 2013 was truly a pandora's box for the brand: enter if you dare.

A model changes into her full body harness backstage at Moonspoon Saloon.

A model sports a furry look at Moonspoon Saloon.

Browless, barren faces and wild black tresses characterized the beauty look at Barbara I Gongini's intense Spring 2012 show.

In between the Battlefield Earth blacks, I Gongini offered some moments of canary yellow on her runway – the rare ray of sunshine in her otherwise impressively bleak vision.

The standout look at I Gongini, pictured here, involved a deconstructed black gown unraveling from head to toe. Like many great Danes, this Faroe Islands-born designer presented her art with a brutal twist.

A model makes her entrance at Johanna Pihl, a show that capitalized upon the chilly minimalism that the Danish adore.

A model dresses at Pihl, showcasing the athletic vibrance of the Spring 2012 collection. Accents like lattice-work fingerless gloves added a modern "moto chic" feel to the very sleek dresses and separates in black, white and blue.

The lone outsider brand at Copenhagen Fashion Week, Adidas used the progressive design experience to showcase some of their Originals collection, which include their more fashion-forward, less performance-concerned clothes.

Fingerless gloves even found their way into Adidas' showcase, suggesting they'll be a mainstay in the upcoming New York, London, Milan and Paris fashion weeks.

One of the more youthful shows of the week, Gaia dressed up sharp, colorful basics with copper accents. Styled in whimsical ways – as tiered gloves, armbands, dramatic angular shoe ornaments and more – the underrated metal made a strong case for itself.

Call these unique buckled shoes at Gaia "postmodern pilgrim."

Gray, white and orange: a very Scandinavian palette dominated Gaia's core looks.