Their own family history, sci-fi films, politics and craftsmanship, the inspirations and stories of four of the seventeen young designers who presented their collections to an international audience as part of the DACH showroom at Paris Fashion Week are so different. Due to Covid-19, the showroom was mainly held digitally, but this season the event returned to Paris.
What is striking is that inspiration and ideas vary, but this new generation of designers has understood that a fashionable future is not possible without a sustainable basic idea and a new perspective.
Güç
About Güç: In 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, Janette Papas founded her fashion label Güç. The name, a homage to her mother’s maiden name, means ‘strong’ in Turkish. The vision of the fashion designer is particularly strong, because she wants to create clothing that adapts to the body – not the other way around. The designs of the young brand, which are designed and handmade between Paris and Vienna, are versatile. Most items of clothing are multifunctional, so not only can they be combined in a wide variety of ways, but are also real quick-change artists that offer different ways of wearing them. This multifunctionality offers a new perspective on sustainability, after all it also avoids overconsumption and overproduction.
Production: The designs are developed by Janette Papas herself, as the designer often makes changes to her designs as they are being sewn. The pieces are ultimately produced in cooperation with a production company in Paris.
Target group: Güç stands for inclusion, but particularly appeals to customers aged 25 and over. The label started with women’s fashion, but quickly realized that the adaptability of the models appealed to all genders.
Stores: The brand is currently available with its own online shop (gucofficial.com) and from the sustainable online retailer Blend.Eco. Other online retailers will follow shortly.
Price Points: The label’s designs cost between 150 euros for a mini skirt and 735 euros for a jacket.
Bestseller: The shirt dress Sevimli and the Safi jacket.
Contact: [email protected]
Anne Bernecker
About Anne Bernecker: “Reuse, Reinvent, Revive” (in German, “reuse”, “reinvent”, “revive”), under this motto, designer Anne Bernecker has been breathing new life into clothing since 2015. The designer combines sustainability with craftsmanship, each of her designs is based on an existing vintage piece, which becomes a high-quality unicum thanks to the hand-worked embroidery and embellishments. The starting point for the small but fine collection are T-shirts, jackets and shirts, all of which differ in size, material and color due to their origin, making each design unique.
Production: Slow fashion and the art of tailoring are two of the focal points of the young label. By using already existing clothing, the production of Anne Bernecker’s designs does not require the creation of new fabrics or the use of raw materials, a point that is particularly relevant in relation to the collection’s dominant denim fabric, which is traditionally one of the most polluting fabrics. For the implementation of the embroideries she designed in Berlin, Bernecker works with an Indian company that has been embroidering the garments by hand for 150 years.
Target group: Anne Bernecker describes her target group as “individual, self-confident and genderless”. Her target group is interested in “luxury fashion”, but also “sustainably oriented”. The designers do not specify a specific age group.
Stores: Anne Bernecke’s designs are available in her own online shop (annebernecker.co.uk), at Essence in Mallorca and at Ofelia Berlin.
Price Points: The hand-embroidered shirts cost 350 to 390 euros and jackets are priced at 690 to 990 euros.
Bestseller: The Lara shirt and the denim jacket “Pinball Jacket Ice”
Contact: [email protected]
Timna Weber
About Timna Weber: Timna Weber’s label of the same name is shaped by the designer’s childhood and family in Austria. Elderly family members, who were once tailors and knitters themselves, taught the designer the craft before she moved on to study in Paris and Amsterdam. She founded her own label to counteract fast fashion, not only on a production level, but also on an emotional level, to “help protect the emotional bond we have with garments,” according to the designer on her website . The result is a high-end, sustainable womenswear label that experiments with textiles, drawing inspiration from abstract art and the handmade. Timna Weber’s collections fuse retro color palettes with tailoring and knitwear.
Production: The designer, who grew up in Austria, only uses natural fabrics and materials from Europe for her collections. Most of the fabrics used by Timna Weber have been awarded certificates such as GOTS or Oekotex or are made of deadstock. The garments in the London-based label’s collections are made in collaboration with local tailors, in Austria and also in Slovenia.
Target group: Her target group includes women between the ages of 30 and 60 who are interested in art and culture and who value sustainability and conscious consumption.
Stores: Timna Weber’s designs are available for purchase at the physical store Atelier 100 in London. The collection is also available online in their own shop (timnaweber.com), in the Netherlands via Oficina Gabardine, in Spain via Trent, in the USA via Grace Bennet and in England via Natural X Lab.
Price Points: The different items of clothing by Timna Weber vary in price between 350 euros for a pullover and 600 euros for a coat.
Bestseller: A knitted sweater that can be worn reversible.
Contact: [email protected]
Not Yet FYI
About Not Yet FYI: “Bold & Sustainable” is how Not Yet FYI describes itself on Instagram. The knitwear label founded by Neva Özcü in Austria combines traditional craftsmanship with eye-catching colors and shapes. The result is unconventional, gaudy and bold knitwear. While, according to the brand’s website, the collections are inspired by sci-fi films and the socio-political situation and illuminate them with sarcasm and humor, the clothes’ ethos is based on sustainability.
Production: “All of our garments are made from high quality materials and are hand knitted with respect for nature, people and all other living things,” the brand said in a statement. All patterns are made in the ‘Not Yet FYI’ studio in Vienna. The garments are then made in a workshop in Istanbul dedicated to supporting unemployed women.
Stores: Not Yet FYI fashion can be purchased through sustainable online luxury fashion retailer We are Yugen and on the label’s website (notyet.fyi). The collection is also available in No.7, a Viennese concept store.
Price Points: Accessories cost between 50 and 150 euros, clothing is between 150 and 400 euros.
Bestseller: The Leila and the Creature Sweater from the current collection
Contact: [email protected]