GOLDEN AGE: Peter Jensen isn’t ashamed to admit that a phone call from Andrew Bolton changed his life.
A few months ago, Bolton, head curator of The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, asked to purchase two looks from Jensen’s YoursTruly collection, a move that sent the Danish designer into “total happiness mode.”
“For an independent designer like me, with no big financial backing, this is everything. Not only am I happy but I’m newly motivated as well. It means so much to me,” said Jensen in a telephone interview from Atlanta, where he’s a professor of fashion at Savannah College of Art and Design.
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Jensen said the looks, two seersucker floral-printed dresses, were based on his grandmother’s gardening outfits. They were made from beige, blue and black fabric sourced from a 1930s vintage store.
He paired those dresses with vintage Burberry raincoats, which he transformed into capes. He adorned those capes with giant brooches sprouting long hair. He showed them during Copenhagen Fashion Week in August 2024 on models who were all over age 45. Some were even 80. All of them had big, wild and wonderful hair.
The designer said he was also inspired by an older woman he saw at the theater, who was wearing a raincoat draped over her shoulders, looking “confident, relaxed and happy.”
The looks are included in the Met’s new Costume Art exhibition, and will be included in the Institute’s permanent collection.
Jensen said the concept behind YoursTruly is to challenge conventional fashion narratives. He said his 2024 Copenhagen show prioritized “lived experience and authenticity. Rooted in sustainable practice and narrative design, the collection emphasized clothing as something shaped by — and evolving with — the body over time.”
Jensen moved to the U.S. after selling his eponymous brand, which was known for its whimsy and wearability, to LG Fashion (now known as LF Corp.) in 2018. He is now teaching seniors and graduate students at SCAD, shows occasionally on the runway and makes one-off pieces.
He said he loves Atlanta, and has made some “fabulous friends.” Although he wasn’t at the Met Gala on Monday, he did attend a private dinner on Saturday night with the designers taking part in the show — and had a grand time. “It reminded me how nice so many people are in this industry,” he said.