When the catwalk leads through the museum

Anyone planning a museum visit this week might encounter a hustle and bustle rather than a contemplative atmosphere. It is Fashion Week in Berlin and many designers are drawn to the museums. From Monday to Wednesday, fashion will be shown in the Altes Museum, the Kunstgewerbemuseum, the Bode Museum, on the Museum Island and in the Fotografiska Photo Museum. They are not just backdrops for beautiful pieces of clothing – there is more to this connection. Fashion Week has become a cultural event that has said goodbye to all too mundane commercialism.

When the fashion shows were still concentrated in a white tent at the Brandenburg Gate, with all the sponsors’ stands and new sports cars in the foyer, the whole thing had the charm of a sales event where everyone could try their luck. The designers who are now entrusted with the museums are carefully selected. One could say they are just as curated as the works of art that are exhibited here.

Like the collection by Rianna and Nina, which was on display at the Bode Museum in February. The dresses were made of precious fabrics and with great craftsmanship. On the other side of the scale is the Berlin brand Namilia, which turned its fashion into political objects of artistic and sexual freedom at the Kulturforum.

Commissioned to organize the event and funded by the Berlin Senate, the lobby group “Fashion Council Germany” is turning Fashion Week on its head and, with the “Berlin Contemporary” program, is supporting 18 young, progressive brands with 25,000 euros each for a fashion show. This is intended to make Fashion Week’s image more culturally relevant.

New supporters are also needed. “This is about art, fashion and culture,” says Tim Neugebauer, creative director of the “Intervention” format, which will open the fashion week at the Tempodrom. He sees a great deal of overlap between the art and luxury fashion markets: “Anyone who buys a Bottega Veneta coat for 6,000 euros is also directly involved in the entry-level price of works of art.”

For the Fashion Council, it is important that the initiator of the “Intervention” and owner of the agency “Reference Studios”, Mumi Haiati, is involved in Fashion Week. He sees himself more as a curator than as a PR man. When a luxury brand like Gucci celebrates in Berlin, Reference probably has a hand in it.

The name of his format already says what Haiati is all about: “Intervention”. He wants to change Fashion Week and put new faces in the front row. He still finds the guest list for Gallery Weekend more interesting than that for Fashion Week. But he’s working on it: “Everything we do is under the working title ‘Berlin International’. The framework is right, everyone is pulling together and the right designers are there.”

He held the first “intervention” in February in an empty department store in Neukölln. The designer Gerrit Jacobs showed his work in Berlin for the first time. Jacobs works in Berlin, but is more focused on the big fashion cities. The same goes for Shayne Oliver, who lives in New York. The protagonists of Berlin art sat in the front row with him. Klaus Biesenbach, director of the Neue Nationalgalerie, the photographer Wolfgang Tillmans and the artists Anne Imhof and Kristina Nagel saw Oliver’s designs, which oscillated between the queer club scene, streetwear and high fashion. In addition to fashion shows, there were installations and exhibitions that visitors could view upon entry.

Striking designs, political stance

This time, there are two Berlin brands that have never presented themselves at Fashion Week before, even though they live and work here.

In the case of Claudia Skoda, it has been around for many decades. The 81-year-old had her heyday in the Berlin underground scene of the 1970s and 1980s. David Bowie wore her sweaters, Martin Kippenberger painted a catwalk for her. This Monday, her iconic designs will be turned into a living exhibition. “I wanted to bring together the key figures that make up Berlin and also the generations,” says Mumi Haiati.

The two designers from GmbH, Serhat Işik and Benjamin A. Huseby, may not have been there as long as Skoda, but they have been successfully represented with their collections in Paris and Milan for many years. Most recently, they worked as head designers at the Italian luxury brand Trussardi.

They stand out not only because of their very distinctive, internationally acclaimed designs, but also because of their political position. As children of Turkish-German and Norwegian-Pakistani parents, they have a particular aversion to anything nationalistic. They made this clear at their last fashion show in Paris in January, when they gave a ten-minute speech calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

GmbH could therefore raise awareness that fashion in Berlin is no longer superficial and harmless. With the many queer and genderfluid presentations, it has long since ceased to be apolitical.