Decoding the Ageless Style of Copenhagen’s Coolest Boutique Owner

The talent pool of Danish fashion runs deeper than what can be seen on the runways. And if a directional designer isn’t showing at Copenhagen Fashion Week, there’s a good chance his or her work is hanging on the racks at Sabine Poupinel. The French-Danish 60-something has served as a linchpin of the local avant-garde movement since 1973—the year she founded her self-named boutique in the country’s capital. After studying photography in art school, Poupinel decided she “didn’t want to work in advertising,” and instead began making and selling clothes in a storefront space. 44 years later, that independent spirit remains—nowhere more so than in Poupinel herself, who embodies both her culture’s penchant for wardrobe experimentation and its embrace of aging without artifice.

Though her fuschia-floored corner space is situated just a couple of blocks off of what has become a strip of international fast fashion chains, its purpose couldn’t be more different. Poupinel seeks out idiosyncratic pieces, many of them one-of-a-kind items made by graduates of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. They embody what she calls “art and craftsmanship—you have to have both.” Her designer discoveries (which populate her colorful Instagram) include Guðrun & Guðrun, whose Sid Vicious–esque sweaters are hand-knit on the Faroe Islands from locally shorn wool, and Bettina Bakdal, a professor at KADK who reconstructs elaborate ruffle-trimmed shirtdresses and blouses from found garments. The store is a destination for clued-in creative types, and has been, apparently, for decades: A young Helena Christensen would swing by with her supermodel posse, and Lenny Kravitz once stopped in during his heyday and bought a pair of snakeskin pants. (Poupinel had no idea who he was at the time, but her shop assistant did—and the star promptly asked her out on a date.)

Poupinel is also a fixture among the Copenhagen intelligentsia, known for hosting political salons and curating Fan Out, a biannual exhibition that spotlights emerging and established Danish designers and features art installations, music performances, and interdisciplinary panel discussions (she’s hoping to also take it to Paris next year). Yet despite her role as an industry connector, “I’m not friends in my private life with fashion people,” she says. “I don’t like small talk.”

That came across—in a good way—during a recent visit. Laconic yet warm, with an air of androgynous chic, Poupinel is the ideal ambassador for her design aesthetic, which she describes as “right now, loose, street, big pants.” Her short, rumpled hair is undyed, her face free of makeup or other interventions; she was holding court that day alongside her Shiba Inu, Loca, in a tie-front wide-leg jumpsuit by local designer Trine Wackerhausen and stiletto sandals with puffy twisted straps by London-based expat Elise Born. It’s not the sort of look commonly found on women of a certain age, which is just how Poupinel likes it. “Yeah, yeah, yeah! You are quite right,” she says with a laugh. “But I think it’s cool because I’m old. That’s the whole point.”