The lovely ladies behind August with Edda Mann and Alexandra Kiesel
Last week, Berlin saw two new additions to its high street retail family. Monki and & Other Stories have been generating buzz through local blogs for weeks now, bringing waves of excitement to the city’s retail addicts. The frenzy is understandable—their extensive and never ending collections of on point trends coupled with the greater allure of their pricing is admittedly hard to resist. And as a recovered retail addict myself, I was almost ready to lift my self-sanctioned high street moratorium for the rush of purchase. Thankfully, I staggered back into good sense when I dropped by Konk to view the current collections from August andAlexandra Kiesel.
Although I did not find anything suitable for myself, I did realize one important thing: there was more fantasy and more invention contained in this small and hidden retail space than one could ever hope to encounter in the vast expanses of those high street giants. For me, shopping at those massive high street retailers can very much be like grocery shopping when I’m extremely hungry. The results are the same: needless purchases that ultimately get tossed out once the moment has passed. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of redeemable qualities found in stores like Monki and & Other Stories, but many of you know what the ethical implications are there and how detrimental this can be for designers and their creative process. If there’s one goal the Œ Team hopes to accomplish, it is to inspire mindful consumption. For this reason, we focus on smaller shops with big ideas, emerging designers with established skills and inspiring talents, and everything else contained in our growing scene that is worth your attention. This week, we bring you Konk and the current collection from Alexandra Kiesel.
Konk has been carrying and supporting emerging German labels for years now. It is one of the few stores in Berlin whose entire portfolio consists of smaller German labels thoughtfully curated by current owner Edda Mann. It comes as no surprise that the shop teamed up with Alexandra Kiesel and August, both young Berlin labels, to kick off the spring season.
Alexandra Kiesel, winner of the 2011 Designer for Tomorrow award, constructs each collection on the principal that the human form can be viewed as a set of building blocks. Consequently, she fashions patterns around this unchanging arrangement. With this logic, she is able to utilize set proportions season after season giving it the Kiesel signature. For her current collection, Kiesel worked with six different artists to create the print work.
The print I’m wearing consists of quotidian kitchen objects such as spatulas, ladles, and knives.
The photos I took of the Kiesel collection did not do the it justice. Here are some photos from its debut awhile back
Also on display was August’s current collection. If you can recall, Œ first mentioned August back during Fashion Week when we first encountered the new label atCOLLECT Showroom. The bold colors and prints were perfect for a menswear editorial Arjen and I styled for the upcoming issue of Œ Magazine. Here’s Arjen modeling a few of his personal favorites.
Photos of August’s current lookbook
Scarves and other accessories from both labels
Kiesel’s literal building blocks pair beautifully with August’s collection.
Kleine Hamburger Straße 15
10117 Berlin
www.konk-berlin.de
