On a balmy evening during Copenhagen Fashion Week last summer, the crowd of well-dressed people gathered for the opening of Mfpen’s first standalone store spilled onto the street outside. The energy in the shop – housed in an industrial-looking space with metal-frame shelving and minimal decor – was of palpable excitement, not only for the milestone celebration, but for its stake in the ground for Danish menswear.

Denmark has long been a world leader of modernist design, from its mid-century furniture – be it Verner Panton’s cantilever chairs or Poul Henningsen’s layered-shade lamps – to its architecture, with the likes of Arne Jacobsen and Jørn Utzon, designer of the Sydney Opera House, flying the flag for functional simplicity.