The recent Copenhagen Fashion Week provided hearing aid manufacturer GN with a new chance to create awareness of hearing health solutions by combining with the conceptual end of the fashion world.

In an interaction with fashion brand HAN Kjøbenhavn, GN wanted to keep head and shoulders above others in the awareness drive, challenging stigma and misconceptions by having two models with hearing loss hit the catwalk in GN hearing aids. The aids dealt with the head part of the equation, while the shoulders could not be described as being far behind, a very distinctive wrapping for the deltoids being provided by GN’s fashion world collaborator.

 

 

 

 

 

Tinnitus represented by a high-pitched siren as models paraded

 

The high-concept HAN Kjøbenhavn show offered more than just a visual spectacle, as models strutted to the sound of a high-pitched siren, simulating the experience of tinnitus.

“It is important for us to highlight issues that are often overlooked, such as hearing loss,” said Jannik Wikkelsø, Founder and Creative Director of HAN Kjøbenhavn.”Inclusion is often talked about in a visual sense, but we wanted to shed light on other significant challenges people face”.

GN, which is building on its 2024-launched New Norm campaign, points out that only one in five people who could benefit from hearing aids actually use them. The manufacturer underlined the importance of “changing the narrative and encouraging people to address their hearing loss”.

 

A shoulder to lie on?

 

One risk of seeking awareness in the fashion world is that other elements – clothes, tattoos, the beauty of models – can steal the attention you want to be focused on hearing health, and in the Copenhagen parade those vast shoulders stake a mighty claim.

 

Padded shoulders were a big thing in the 1940s and the 1980s, but the HAN Kjøbenhavn covering for the glenohumeral joints references beyond the street and into extravagant cultural examples. To name just three, there is the 1958 sci-fi film The Colossus of New York; the broad butler of the Addams Family, Lurch, or the splendidly surreal singing performance in Stop Making Sense, a live show and film in which the width was carried by Talking Heads lead David Byrne.

 

Source:GN/HAN Kjøbenhavn