Berlin Fashion Week is making a grand return for the Spring/Summer 2025 season, spotlighting a blend of emerging talent, imaginative showcases, and an innovative sustainability initiative, shedding light on upcoming fashion designers. In a groundbreaking partnership with Copenhagen Fashion Week, the Fashion Council Germany has established sustainability guidelines for all participating brands. From next season, brands will be guided to adhere to these guidelines. These sustainability requirements will become mandatory for all participating brands within two years. These include fair wages, enhanced traceability, and a commitment to eco-friendly materials. Regarding style, Berlin is celebrated for its bold and edgy style. Most of its schedule’s design talent fits this aesthetic, but don’t be fooled; the city’s upcoming fashion designers aren’t easy to categorize. Discover the design talent to have on your radar. Cover image: Ben Moenks
BERLIN FASHION WEEK SPRING/SUMMER 2025
Over the past seasons, Berlin Fashion Week has done a great job improving itself, from selecting emerging talent to inviting worldwide press, content creators, and buyers to its overall organization. International visitors were driven through the city in Cupora’s newest cars, while locals could have a BFW-branded touring vehicle at their disposal. There’s no other fashion week that takes the transport and well-being of its guests so seriously, and that’s something to take notes of.
DER BERLINER SALON
Aside from London Fashion Week, it’s one of the few fashion weeks that actively provides a platform for young designers to show their work. Each season, Der Berliner Salon spotlights the country’s most promising design talent—from fashion students to more established brands who deserve to be noticed by a broader public. To name a few: Vanessa Baernthol showed punk-inspired designs, which reminded me of Vivienne Westwood’s early career; fashion student Marius Moninger created couture with streetwear references; Frieda Kamphues showed she mastered the art of fabric manipulation; International Citizen created trench coats from 70-year old military tents, and Fabia Meyer merged two and three-dimensional designs in her latest work. Overall, Berlin’s upcoming designers fall nothing short regarding sustainability and innovativeness. Like previous editions, Christiane Arp did a great job selecting upcoming fashion designers to watch.
MEET BERLIN’S UPCOMING FASHION DESIGNERS
MARKE
As mentioned, Marke’s Mario Keine walks the extra mile. With the likes of Vogue Germany and a limitless commitment to improving each season, the designer is one to watch. His current collection focuses on the modern view of masculinity versus femininity and how barely anything has changed since last century’s Roaring Twenties. It leads to genderless designs with dropped waistlines, magnificent fits, and an unmatchable eye for detail. With his new collection, Keine proved again he is one to watch.
BALLETSHOFER
The super young Alan Balletshofer showed his second runway collection during Berlin Fashion Week. The designer has a predilection for streetwear and formal tailoring. His solution to the distinctive styles is to merge them – and he does so seamlessly. With a background in pattern creation at 032C, his designs are high-quality, innovative, and incredibly well-made. “I wanted to focus more on the silhouette than visually striking colors,” Balletshofer explains. “This season, these range from shapes with a broad back and tailored front elements, highly positioned pockets, to tall collars. These play a pivotal role in this collection and showcase the attractiveness of people walking around urban settings.”
MILK OF LIME
Milk of Lime finds its roots in Berlin and Antwerp. The creative duo behind the Berlin-based brand introduces a wardrobe beyond seasonality. Their latest collection focuses on the weather in its broadest sense. “We found a book in a second-hand shop called ‘Wie es Wetter wird’ translated ‘How the weather will be’. It consisted of illustrations and descriptions of how farmers predicted the weather,” the designers explained. Overall, Milk of Lime seeks bridges between the rural and the metropolitan, between the unique and the mundane. The duo is heavily inspired by natural materials and uses them as the starting point for their designs. The textures they source in their surroundings find their way into collaged garments and finely manufactured goods, telling sometimes harsh, sometimes romantic stories. This contrast forms the mood of Milk of Lime, bringing an ongoing poem about life and the afterlife into people’s closets.
HADERLUMP
With a focus on sustainable clothing and state-of-the-art high-fashion, Berlin-based Haderlump is one of the upcoming designers not to miss. Their craftsmanship goes beyond the ordinary, making it hard to believe they create their collections in their Berlin atelier. “We often reimagine “used” ideas and reinterpret them according to our time. Central to our ethos is a commitment to longevity in material durability and conceptual depth. We believe brilliant ideas require quality materials for their realization, just as interesting materials necessitate innovative ideas for enduring creations,” explains Johann Ehrhardt, creative director and co-founder of the brand. The Haderlump collection was showcased to a large audience at the historic aircraft hangar of Tempelhof Airport. Featuring bomber jackets made from recycled parachute fabrics, leather caps, floor-sweeping coats, and uniform-like denim looks, “AERO” reflected the pioneering spirit of early 20th-century aviators.
AVENIR
Alongside Berlin’s concrete buildings, Avenir showed a fun and playful collection based on modern commuters. No matter their city, these people share similar commuting experiences. With the collection, Avenir unites the anonymous faces in the crowd and the different personalities, styles, and routines contributing to commuter culture. All pieces are created according to the slow fashion principle: from cotton, linen, and lambswool to poly chiffon blends and denim, all materials are sourced from remnants or have been upcycled.
Furthermore, Avenir offers a dual-line approach, with their ‘Blue Line’ offering unique, made-to-order upcycled garments, celebrating individuality and slow design. Simultaneously, the ‘Red Line’ provides accessible, eco-conscious ready-to-wear options.
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