Mostly, I am not a big fan of VICE Magazine, but the Vice TV productions sometimes are very recommendable. Berlin Fashion Week started today, but you might be interested in how the same event is celebrated in cities that don’t get as much attention as Paris, Milano or New York. In the series Fashion Week Internationale, journalist and ex model Charlet Duboc travels to e.g. Seoul, Jamaica, Tel Aviv and Nigeria and digs deeper into the countries’ culture, ideals of beauty and societal challenges. Find all episodes here or just search on Youtube.

Once more Berlin Fashion Week came and went; but some impressions are still lingering on. Like the presentation by Augustin Teboul, atmospherically illuminated by a wonderfully warm and bright light concept. The collection is black and dominated by intricate lace and crochet elements. As usual, you might say, but experts agreed upon a progress in Augustin Teboul’s work which in this collection became evident in more graphical and ethnical elements. Check out for yourselves here!

Right in time for Berlin Fashion Week, the lookbook we designed for eyewear label Lunettes Kollektion arrived from the printers. Great glasses, perfect models, beautiful photos shot by David Fischer and styled by Rainer Metz … a welcome dash of colour in Berlin’s grey weather. Check out the new Lunettes collection at the Collect Showroom!

Thanks to everybody who joined to celebrate the release of Π#2 at voo store. And a special thanks to the wonderful Almdudlerdern for yodeling along!

Photos: Christian Smirnow

We´re just back from the press proof of the second issue of Œ magazine. It´s printed at printing house Heenemann and we´re very satisfied with what we saw. We can´t wait until it returns from the bookbinder! The images show contributions by Yves Borgwardt, Rachel de Joode, Jette Stolte and Jan Mielke,  for a copy and a list of all contributors check out www.oe-magazine.de. The issue will be out on November 18th.

The website we designed for one of our favourite Berlin fashion designers Sonia Boessert of Boessert/Schorn is now online! The design process was a little accidental: the grey patchwork-pattern in the background originally was composed to visualize a grid system we wanted to lay behind everything and fill with different content and images. It happend that Sonia liked it so much that she wanted it to actually be the design for her website. And as client is king we implemented this idea.

A little potpourri of things we saw last week during Fashion Week in Berlin. We complemented Reality Studio’s presentation on Alte Schönhauser Straße with a closer look at the collection in Arne Eberle’s Collect Showroom. After some more stops we congratulated Alfhild Sarah Külper on her grand graduation at Central Saint Martins, which made Lady Gaga instantly order one of her 3D-dresses. On Saturday our Fashion Week excursion was rounded off with a Œ Magazine get-together at ninety-five gallery on Torstraße.
As lovers of printed matter we like to take along the publications accompanying Fashion Week, first of all DERZEIT fashion week Berlin daily.

Together with more than 30 photographers, stylists, hair & make-up artists and models we were part of a fun project during the last weeks. We took care of the visual concept and layout of »Œ Magazine«, which is a new fashion magazine that focuses on Berlin’s fashion scene. The magazine is non-commercial and is in parts financed by crowdfunding. Check out the project’s campaign video here on WeFund and if you like it, feel free to support a good cause!

Contributing photographers: Amos Fricke, Dirk Merten, Lars Borges, Christoph Schemel, Andreas Lux, Jochen Arndt, Rachel de Joode, Clément Martz

Contributing stylists: Christian Stemmler, Christof Post, Rainer Metz, Åsa Lundström, Brenda Barr, Antje Gohlke, MAVEN, Julian Zigerli

Contributing hair & make-up artists: Alexander Soltermann, Henriette Höft, Manuela Kopp, Miriam Jochims

So nice to see that Berlin makes one small step after the other towards being the exciting fashion capital everybody likes to talk about. Yesterday we attended the shop opening of »Happy Shop« on Torstraße and we think that this colorful shop with premium and middle priced clothes with a playful and humourous attitude adds another facet to Berlin’s fashion assortment. The head behind the shop is designer Mischa Alexandra Woeste, known from her fashion label, Smeilinener.  Happy clothes, happy people, happy music, happy food, happy Maven : )

Hurry, hurry, until Saturday, January 15th, you can watch the Valentino documentary on Swedish public service online channel SVT Play (that means if you can tolerate that the parts in Italian language are subtitled in Swedish, only). Besides insights into the crazy world of fashion, the documentary offers entertainment, tension & supense and a lot of emotions exchanged between Valentino and his partner and companion Giancarlo Giammetti.

A lot of things kept us busy in December, for instance the art direction and production of a fashion spread for a new Berlin based magazine. We chose an approach which included a great deal of crafting and painting – so nice to get away from the computer for some time! Here are some behind the scenes pictures, we’ll keep you posted with the final results…

Thanks to ACHTEINHALB for the great opening! We were also exited to see the new visual identity we designed for them applied in the store.

Womans Wear Daily has published a list of Pantone Colors that fashion designers used most for their 2011 spring collections.

1. Honeysuckle ( 15,5%)
2. Regatta (14,8%)
3. Coral Rose (14,0%)
4. Beeswax (13,3%)
5. Peapod (10,3%)

Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, refers to exotism when she analyses the color scheme, the chosen colors are supposed to give people a lift in times of concern about the economy and life in general. Also WWD relates to escapism: The designers use colors from far-away countries to make the consumers forget their everyday problems. For more color psychology, even regarding the men’s collections, click here.

And also this post is about paint, nail polish, to be precise. I like to add a splash of colour to my daily routine which otherwise can be quite grey/beige/black (sartorially speaking). And it’s always inspiring to see some more advanced nail styles with, yes, style. A great example for elegant nails is the YSL Couture Manicure, here you can read a DIY tutorial. In questions of nail elegance you might even consider Anna-Sara Dåvik’s fingertip rings or her gloves with metal nails, but here we leave the field of nail polish, of course. Another way of achieving shiny silvery nails is the new Minx technique which works with plastic foils and also comes in fierce animal prints. And apropos animals, why don’t get inspired by your favorite runway look, the Miu Miu swallows from the blog Stop It Right Now are a nice example.

We are so proud of our friend Arne, who for his showroom not only managed to COLLECT some of the most interesting fashion labels from Berlin, but also to present them in an inspiring location. In the black concrete L40 building you feel as urban as it gets while watching at fashion right in the middle of the intersection of Tor- and Rosa-Luxemburg-Strasse. Labels on display are Burkhardt / Möllmann, Esther Perbandt, Hien Le, Howitzweissbach, Juliaandben, Maiami, Mono.gramm, Starstyling, Tiedeken and Reality Studio, whose models arrived as »A moving Fashion show on bicycles«.