I watched a nice young woman walking around the show’s open-air place while waiting in the rain for Avenir to begin, believing that with her bulk of black curls and calmly weathered crimson leather coat she was bound to be in the runway lineup. The late Tuesday evening throb of Berlin was all around us when Sophie Claussen, the artist, decided to show her collection on a side street near Potsdamer Platz. A rocking circle had just begun playing on the street, and the musician put her sticks down, got up, and then slipped her bare feet into a pair of salt alternative mules, which coincided with her brilliant lime green knit leading and smooth pants, before heading down the street that served as the runway. But look 1 was subsequently followed by that.
Soon afterward, she was joined by a man who was quickly navigating the same road while wearing a pair of inverted khakis, cut with a free, laid-back confidence that I am realizing is quite Berlin. A black diagonally thickened utility shirt in deep green nylon was worn with a matching sack bag over yet more super-slouchy trousers. Finally a bright lemon bright knit polo shirt with a scarf turned into a clean cotton clothing in the same shade of yellow. At one level, a unit was wheeling a vehicle while another was steering one of those granny-like shopping carts. All of this was delivered with a sense of ease and attitude that, as I am even realizing, is quite Berlin-like. It’s definitely pretty Avenir.
However, what of Purple Leather Coat Woman, where was she in this portfolio? I got my truth by glancing over to the path, which she was crossing. She was only a stranger, a passenger perhaps, one who proceeded to vanish out of see, swallowed up by the gaping secrecy of the city. She previously participated in the program. Claussen laughed when I told her this after the final model had taken their victory lap, and she was away from backstage, because in essence this was what the collection was on: How we are private as we travel the city, only but also up, with so many people—and in Berlin, also, that’s an awful lot of people.
Not surprisingly, Claussen had dubbed the series Commute, and because of the area we were in, it came with a distinct historical viewpoint: The present location was where the old west Berlin met the old south Berlin. “For us, this location is such a vital, historic place, it’s where the city was divided”, she said. “And you can now freely travel from A to B.” The square-patched denim riffed on the cobblestones you might see if you looked down from your Lime scooter, and her collection took on a little bit of its own journey, with the bias stripes on that utility shirt coming from the markings on the road.
That denim was upcycled, and there was plenty of it in this case that was done with the same eco-consciousness that almost every Berliner shares. Claussen’s surplus fabrics were sourced from all over Europe. Although some of the early knitted looks were perhaps less necessary than others that were later on display, Claussen’s Avenir was light and quick on its feet and had a clear direction.