Berlin Fashion Week Is Not Dead.

SS26 reportage by Amelie Stanescu

What we’ve been witnessing in the past seasons has been a massive rebirth of Berlin fashion as an industry. Sponsors have changed, and I guess the current ones are actually
serious about this—hence the €4M yearly investment they committed to. Shows are bigger, better, sexier. The line-up gets longer by the season. It’s like someone finally realized there’s actual fashion going on here so let’s spread it.

What we’ve been witnessing in the past seasons has been a massive rebirth of Berlin fashion as an industry. Sponsors have changed, and I guess the current ones are actually serious about this, hence the €4M yearly investment they committed to. Shows are bigger, better, sexier. The line-up gets longer by the season. The energy doesn’t scream “DIY” in the way it used to—still raw, still Berlin, but with structure now. It’s like someone finally realized there’s actual fashion going on here.

SS26 in 40 degrees. No shade. No air. Berlin’s hottest day since I moved here ten years ago and we still showed up. In boots. In lace. All layered up like fashion onions. I was not surprised. Weather never matters in fashion currency (economy).

GMBH was touching—they opened with 58 seconds of silence. The dedication was for every Palestinian man, woman, and child killed in Gaza. Massive room filled with hundreds of guests from all over the world, really. It made me uncomfortable for a sec—I was afraid to feel people not knowing what to do with themselves. It actually felt wholesome and respectful. Or maybe just for a minute, everyone was happy to just stfu. The collection, titled Imitation of Life, featured long shirts like hospital gowns, sheer overlays, leather boots à la GMBH, fake money clinging to skin like guilt. There were nods to childhood, to family tapes, to joy as performance. But everything felt off—like someone pressed play on a memory you forgot you blocked.

“We are sleepwalking. Sleepless. Ghosts.” That line from the show notes really stuck with me. So did the feeling.

Richert Beil
Richert Beil / text from GMBH

RICHERT BEIL is an OG.
Stop calling them “emerging.” They’re past that. This was their tenth year, and their SS26 show was a gut punch in a Kreuzberg pharmacy. The title—Milieuschutz—referenced the legal protection of neighborhoods, but the collection was about emotional preservation: clothes as memory holders, tailoring as medium. Oversized jackets with rose tapestry. Handmade lace over silk. Latex lederhosen and Tracht references twisted into quiet rebellion. They said it best themselves: it’s about keeping the poetry—in fabric, in form, in process.

OTTOLINGER gave big sister energy in the best way – if your big sister was a genius who forgot her pants but still made the damn fit work. Resort 2026 came with scorched denim corsets, slashed mesh, heavy leather, and micro skirts/shorts. The casting was fun, Kim Petras and Cosima (co-founder of Otto) really stole the show. Girls gone Otto :))

The one show I regret missing was Lueder.
I heard it was impactful, in the right way. Structured but sensitive. Berlin minimalism but not flat—almost brutalist but with feeling. The kind of show that doesn’t scream for attention but builds reputation slowly, season after season. Exactly the kind of designer I care about.
It stung a little watching it back on online. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.

SF1OG is stuck in 2010s heartbreak and I’m fine with that.
This collection was a fever dream of indie nostalgia and EMOtional decay staged in a literal construction site in West Berlin. A suspended forest of fabric columns. A cast that looked like they just got dumped via text. I know that look. I lived through that look. I could relate to that energy. The silhouettes were very Hedi, the layers were intentional. The Converse collab felt like a logical progression. Gotta say, for a sneaker collab, there was more SF1OG in that than Converse for that matter. Everything about it was tender and self-destructive.
Looking at it, I couldn’t help thinking this was straight out of a Skins episode, or out of that podcast episode I did about the Hedi Slimane boy and the Ann Demeulemeester girl. Same hunger, same collapse.

Amelie Stanescu at Haderlump
Haderlump
SF10G

I don’t know what it is about Haderlump but looking at those dresses, those corsets and coats—I see myself wearing those looks.
I don’t think it’s the most wearable brand out there, but it resonates with my expectations of what I’d feel amazing wearing, if that makes sense.
That corseted long sleeve was all people kept talking about after the show.
I hope it will come in black too.

Laura Gerte is still in a baby stage, but you can feel something forming. The kind of show that doesn’t hit you all at once—but lingers.
It’s textured. A little haunted. She’s not trying to scream Berlin yet. But she will. There’s promise there, and it’s growing.

Esther Perbandt did what she always does—made it feel like Berlin still has a sense of theatre.
Heavy silhouettes. Signature black. A little operatic, a little punk.
It’s not trying to be trendy. It’s just very her.

And of course, Diane Pernet showed up.
She was in Berlin, didn’t plan to stay long, but stayed long enough to catch Esther’s presentation.
That alone should tell you something.
Diane doesn’t move for just anything.

BFW is just refusing to die.

Ottolinger
Esther Perbandt
Diane Pernet & Amelie Stanescu

Berlin Fashion Week Is Not Dead

Credits:

Words: Amelie Stanescu / @chez.amelie
Editor: Anca Macavei / @ancamacavei

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