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IDEN – SS25 – JUVENILE DELINQUENT
Talent – Deylin Malachi
Organically built, soulfully maintained and perpetually evolving – Moritz, founder of fashion label “IDEN”, shares their unique journey from establishment of the brand, to its core values and refreshing insights into the fashion industry.
Though they grew up in a small town in the outskirts of Hamburg, there was a chosen duality present in their surroundings – with only a 30 minute train ride opening up doors to raves and vibrant surroundings, while still being able to return to the more composed and tranquil nature of their home. Similarly exploratory was their approach to art, starting out by experimenting with different mediums, from pencil drawings to acrylics, until they made the jump to digital art. With the internet as their guide, they were quickly able to master a variety of programs, and further reinforced by their self-taught sewing skills, they began recreating garments they had seen on television.
“I feel like we’re the first generation to grow up with the internet so readily available, and no one really told us how to use it, because our parents didn’t know either. So we kind of just used it as what it was, which had its perks and also its downfalls. But yeah, I always just looked for what I could find, and everything was kind of there.”
IDEN – AW24 – OHNMACHT
Styling & Creative Consulting – Léon C. Romeike
Photography – Shauna Summers
Make-Up – Leana Ardeleanu
Hair – Tina Pachta
Casting – Rafael David
Photography Assistants – Isabel Spantzel & Adrià P. Carrilero
Production Assistant – John K. Andrews
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Talent – Felix Lander
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Talent – Webster
With a more permanent change of scenery, they began a new chapter, attending the HTW fashion school in Berlin, unknowingly discovering a place of great comfort. In contrast to their early learnings, here they were confronted with experienced professors and surrounded by equally passionate peers, gathering great technical skills to parallel their already abundant artistic drive, culminating in a mentorship by acclaimed fashion designer Hussein Chalayan. Under his tutelage, Moritz was able to expand their horizons, further identify their inspirations and truly solidify their creative journey, ultimately building a new world and vision.
Unexpectedly interrupting their internship semester, the COVID pandemic introduced Moritz’s first opportunity to produce something of their own, separate from the context of university. At home they were able to fully immerse themselves in their digital art, while also experimenting with knitwear for the first time, which would later become the foundation of their brand. Having always been very active on social media, their published work began to gain traction and within a few weeks, after numerous requests, they set up their online shop and finally IDEN was born. Using their father’s last name, IDEN also references the “Iden des März” or the Ides of March, most commonly renowned as the date of Julius Caesar’s assassination, which falls on the 15th of March, associated with misfortune and doom.
IDEN – AW24 – OHNMACHT
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Talent – Webster
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Talent – Felix Lander
Being enamored with graphics and visuals, print became an enjoyable medium for Moritz – however it did not come without limitations, which ultimately led them to transposing those skills onto a new medium:
“When you print on white fabric, you can never really get a good black, and the colors always look a little bit less saturated. It’s always a little bit washed out almost, because if you print black on white, it’s never fully black. And if you have the knitwear, for example, if the yarn is black beforehand, you can get a really, really dark black and really really saturated colors. And when you then use the different yarns as pixels, you can get a very three-dimensional looking fabric. And the black also swallows a lot of the light, so that’s why it looks very 3D, if that makes sense, why it kind of has that intensity as opposed to print. And it’s really comfortable.”
By utilizing their print-expertise, including how to create cohesive imagery over seams, and combining it with their digital know-how, they have created a widely appealing and novel approach to existing techniques, resulting in their captivating designs.
IDEN – SS25 – JUVENILE DELINQUENT
Styling & Creative Consulting – Léon C. Romeike
Photography – Tom Funk
Make-Up – Leana Ardeleanu
Hair – Dennis Brandt
Casting – Rafael David
Photography Assistance – Marcus Fa
Styling Assistance – John Andrews
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Talent – Lukresia
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Talent – Daniel
The process of designing itself is very emotional for Moritz, often taking inspiration for each collection from what they lived through at the time. Mirroring their love for visuals, films by John Waters, Gregg Araki and Peter Greenaway and their intense visual directions served as huge general inspirations for the label. Whenever they are near the finish line, they rely on close collaborators to help with styling and final changes before mutually deciding a piece or collection is finished.
Ultimately, they strive for people to fall in love with their clothes, knowing that a truly cherished piece will never be discarded – a feeling they are familiar with themselves. A leather jacket that their mother purchased years ago with a friend, so they could pass it back and forth with one another, is their prized possession, being the one thing they would rescue out of a burning building.
When discussing the fashion industry and the competitive ecosystem of larger vs smaller brands, they emphasize the importance of captivating the right audience and finding ways to make things affordable to those who actually want to buy them. The goal is not to entertain competition, but to find those who really appreciate the brand for what it is. As a smaller brand, it is also easier to produce more consciously, rather than feeding into overconsumption. By employing a made-to-order production and a digitalized sampling system, they are left with very little waste, and their customers are happy to wait a few weeks before receiving their one-of-a-kind garments.
Accompanying the digital aspect of IDEN is queerness, as its core element – sometimes incorporated even unconsciously.
“Sometimes I don’t even realize when it’s happening. Like someone says ‘oh, it’s so cool that you put a man in the dress’ and I’m like ‘right, we did that’ because it’s something I don’t even think about anymore, just because it’s so deeply rooted in my form of expression that it makes it into the brand very seamlessly. And most of the people that I work with are also queer and they all get it, so it’s never a question of whether we should do it or not.”
While the fashion community in Berlin may be smaller than in certain other cities, it has still greatly influenced and inspired IDEN’s trajectory with its authenticity and true fashion connoisseurs. With the AW25 collection underway, Moritz teases that it will be a bit different color wise – more gray, dark and a little more dirty and more Berlin. With a touch more sophistication, this collection moves closer towards the ‘real’ than the ‘digital’, melting all these elements into one.
IDEN – SS25 – JUVENILE DELINQUENT
Talent – LukresiaLooking back at the evolution of IDEN, Moritz feels a renewed sense of pride each time they finish a collection and wrap up a shoot, marveling at all the people involved in the project who are there, because they truly believe in what they do and want to be a part of it. This sense of accomplishment further floods them any time they see somebody wearing their clothes, breathing life into something they created with their own two hands.
Building this brand has been no easy feat, but has always filled them with joy and purpose and in the words of their grandma: “If it were easy, everyone else would be doing it too.”
