photos by Katja Hentschel
Last night was a very exciting night for my friend Gina and me. Our 9th Designer Scouts event took place in the oversized studio of our friend Julia from JULIAANDBEN. When I first stepped into this space it instantly gave me a feeling of excitement: Apart from it’s perfect size and build-up it had such an amazingly positive and creative vibe (probably some left-over Karma from the gallery that was in here before Julia moved in) that I instantly thought: We have to do a runway show in here. We haven’t actually done any runway since the good old days when we started the Designer Scouts project at HBC about two years ago. What a long journey we’ve had since then: installations, fashion presentations, exhibitions, fashion films, swap markets and what not. But in the end it was clear: The ultimate ritual of fashion is the runway show. My recap and the impressions after the jump.
Our emerging young talents were amazing (as always). We saw the experimental work of Franziska Michael last season at the EDGED showroom. We were intrigued with her style and it was great how she managed to transport her extroverted design into a perfectly wearable yet unconvetional and edgy collection for the runway. Emilia Tikka was a discovery by Gina that she stumbled upon at Not Just A Label. When she saw her incredible External Body collection photos she knew that I would love this. And she was absolutely right! I met the charming people behind the label Marc Andersen a while ago at a dinner that they were hosting (incredibly good cooks they are). I was amazed when they introduced me to their graphical scarf collection recently and even more so when they told me about their idea to present their collection with a dance performance by two ballet dancers.
We’ve been following the work of our colleagues from the EDGED showroom now since they started and have always admired their selection of designers. With both our focus set on avant-garde and emerging talents we have quite a similar taste in fashion and so it made a lot of sense for us to ask them if they would like to curate a runway show in our program. They picked a young talent that we have been following as well for a while now: Studio Laend Phuengkit has made some amazing collections in the past combining a contemporary urban style with traditional Asian elements.
After a three-day-marathon of clearing out Julia’s studio, building up the runway set, having an exciting event with over 300 people, taking everything down again, cleaning the place and putting everything back in place as it was before (almost) I am totally exhausted (and a bit sad I missed so many interesting events at Berlin Fashion Week because of it). But I am super happy because the event went great and the collections were awesome and the designers were happy and we had no drama except for a big fat scolding I received from the boss of the arch studio Graft from the forth floor who fiercely complained about us for blocking the elevator all day long. Sorry you had to use the stairs, man…
I would like to give my gratitude to all our helping hands for their great support which include my bestie Sarah, our long-term team member Tina, Jacky, Christina and Henrik from EDGED, Johannes from Merkezi and his handy friend Julian, our door girl Elisa, my sister Susanne who once again made delicious food for us backstage, my super-talent friend Katja for her great photos and sweet Anna who organized our lounge. I would also like to thank the amazing team of SKYY VODKA who supported us and treated us with a great bar team and delicious drinks, the guys from Lichtforum who supplied us with amazing runway light and the team of molar who took care of the hair in great style. Thank you also to every hair and make-up artist and all the wonderful models that made the presentations of our designers truely professional. And a special thanks to Julia, Sebastian and their fellow tenants for giving us their space to turn it into a great runway venue. The impressions below.
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