At the end of July, students and graduates of the Institute for Experimental Clothing and Textile Design at the Universität der Künste Berlin presented their final projects and theses.
The SCHAU22 UdK Rundgang saw Germany’s largest arts university transformed into an open studio, with exhibitions presented variously in white-walled galleries, storage spaces, sewing rooms and winding corridors filled with purple smoke.
Over a weekend of interdisciplinary runway collections, sculptures, video, performance artwork, textile exhibitions and guided tours, SCHAU22 championed the values of experimental design and platformed a new generation of emerging fashion creatives.
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The exhibition
Graduate thesis tours were led by silent, demon-eyed guides in janitor’s clothing and blackout contact lenses. Through speakers carried stiffly over their heads, a disembodied voice presented the tour, while they maintained eerie, lobotomised smiles.
The exhibitions ranged from Nataliya Susyak’s hanging, floor-to-ceiling garments accompanied by a voice that pleaded with the audience to “touch me”, to Erika Körner’s dark, back-room showing of globular plastic forms and suspended aquamarine fabrics stretched thin as a membrane, appropriating the body in the tension of its absence.
Meanwhile, Clara Bageac blurred the introspective and the tangible with her presentation of a claustrophobic room of intricately woven lace, offcuts, faux hair, glittering gemstones, seashells and tiny figurines, while a recording of Martin Heidegger’s famously impenetrable philosophy played.
The runway
On the runway, collections challenged notions of scale, with blown-up lapels, body-drowning jackets and sweats, and shin-brushing sleeves. Garments comprised of offcuts, excess drapery, fraying, cut-outs, and the re-ordering of inner- and outerwear were also prevalent – an homage to the raw craft of textiles.
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Arkadiusz Swieton Charlotte Huttenloher
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Denise Kipke Jill Theisges
Show images by Maximilian Mouson
Meanwhile, armour-inspired silhouettes were subverted by soft fabrics, knitted headgear and helmets, and even press-moulded plastic garments for a vac-pack look. Elsewhere, there were selfie sticks, inflatable dresses, tropical skin-tight body suits, and outfits made of hair.
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Khulan Klecker Laurin Stecher
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Luis-Amslgruber Mona Gutheil
Show images by Maximilian Mouson
UdK SCHAU22 theses by
Aleks Hein
Camilla Volbert
Clara Bageac
Denise Kipke
Erika Körner
Frederik Britzlmair
Joy Braun
Nataliya Susyak
UdK SCHAU22 runway looks by
Aimée Grünewald
Anastasiia Antonenko
Arkadiusz Swieton
Bob Chapri Silalahi
Charlotte Huttenloher
Constantin Prückner
David Korn
Denise Kipke
Dominik Bittmann
Elea Jenner
Elizaveta Efimova
Greta Berghoff
Haleh Afshar
Ina Bak
Iva Hoes
Jakob Deutschmann
Jill Theisges
Jonathan Richter
Khulan Klecker
Kiarash Amourizi Varnamkhasti
Kieun Hong
Lara Geyer
Laurin Stecher
Emily Zanon
Lena Kleinert
Lenard Schnitzler
Leo De Saint Sève
Lucille Gonzalez
Luis Amslgruber
Mai Hoang
Maj Doehring
Mallki Garrafa Schmalz
Marina Kolushova
Melchior Rasch
Michael Sieweke
Mila Domeier
Mona Gutheil
Nikolai Keller
Patrick Engelmayer
Philine Beutel
Philip Welp
