Backissues
Issue 1/2010
Styleguide Berlin
Interview Stephan Schneider
Editorial
Overcoming a stroke of destiny is usually a long drawn-out process. But everyone who has ever been through something like that knows what hidden reserves we have in us. Euphoria for example, when rediscovering one’s former strength, or joy at a new experiment – doing things that before lay beyond our horizons.
That’s how we felt in Berlin: after the building of the Wall in 1961 and the following 28 years of political turmoil the reunification meant the start of a new era for both East and West. Gastronomy, fashion, music, art and club culture – the various scenes literally exploded. A growing sense of self, room for experimentation: soon after the fall of the Wall, the metropolis was one of the most exciting places in the world.
And twenty years on, we can happily confirm that the hearts of the city dwellers are still beating wildly – even though it’s pretty sedate nowadays in the former exciting districts like Prenzlauer Berg and Mitte. But to complain about it would be misplaced. After all, a more sedate tempo is also an indication that more money is flowing into the city. On top of that a certain mainstream feel doesn’t seem to have stemmed the flow of new ideas and new businesses. On the contrary, when it comes to fashion, it would seem.
It’s a view shared by Stephan Schneider, who expressly requested that we didn’t just interview him about his work as Antwerp designer, but also as a Berlin professor. He talks to Mahret Kupka (from page 76) in an interview about his work at the Academy of Arts (UdK), about ushering his students into the world of fashion, and the opportunities and risks the German capital harbours for the new generation of fashion designers.
While we’re on the topic of the new generation: what exactly are they up to at the moment? Where is the avant-garde hiding and what’s happening with the innovative force of fashion? Our author Fredericke Winkler, who also works at one of the Berlin fashion academies, Esmod, went off in search of answers to these questions, accompanied in her search for the zeitgeist by another capital city spirit: the illustrator Dorothea Huber.
The architects at the Berlin office Graft are some of the most innovative people around. Due to their international success and the resulting jetset lifestyle they were notoriously difficult to pin down for an interview though. Charlotte Bay eventually managed to talk to the city designers about their notions of architecture.
Photographer Kai von Rabenau was inspired by buildings far more historic than those of Graft: Berlin’s Gropiusstadt, where he photographed the fashion spread ‘Gorod Sputniki’ on pages 124 to 133, giving a small taster of the reserved sobriety of men’s fashion in 2010.
We hope we’ve managed to get you excited about Berlin with this issue. Hope to bump into you there!
Ilona Marx, Editor in Chief
Freelance contributors
Photographers
Rachel de Joode, Junichi Kikuchi, Michael Munique, Andy Rumball, Felicity Sagoe
Illustrators
Dorothea Huber, Roman Klonek
Authors
Charlotte Bay, Mahret Kupka, Eva Westhoff, Fredericke Winkler
