
Berlin Fashion Week | Shows Not To Miss If You Are Looking For Eco-Responsible Premium Brands
July arrives with Berlin Fashion Week SS26, the event of the season featuring the most stunning, groundbreaking and beautiful eco-conscious designs. From brands that have a keen focus on reflecting inwardly to ones that embrace the authentic technique of paint-sewing, let’s check out the eco-conscious brands you need to keep an eye on this season.
BERLIN FASHION WEEK – SHOW SCHEDULE
Berlin Fashion Week SS26 features the most stunning designs made by sustainable brands you need to check out. Founded in 2007, it is a grand Fashion Week that presents innovation, creativity, design and authentic connection.
The sustainable brands featured this season are inventive, imaginative and endearingly creative. Here they are, in all their glory…
MONDAY, JUNE 30
5:00 PM
VIKTORANISIMOV
The Feuerle Collection
On Monday, June 30, Ukrainian brand VIKTORANISIMOV debuted its collection for the first time at the SS26 Berlin Fashion Week. The collection took place at The Feuerle Collection, which is a private art museum that was formerly a Second World War telecommunications bunker. The designer behind the namesake brand, Viktor Anisimov, is known to create compelling, evolutionary looks with a military feel.
The collection itself is inspired by the brand’s recent work on a capsule wardrobe for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, where it houses figures in uniform-style jackets and included “with minimal adaptation”. Including 36 looks, it houses a “figure in black, standing amid the ruins of a building destroyed by a missile”. The color of black that is chosen for this look is “a language of reality”. There is tension, hope, transformation, and beautiful complex emotions that are felt even more with the show’s accompanied original score by Ukrainian composer Vitalii Telesin. “font-In addition to this, the prime looks of the collection include wrap shirts, long tunics with open hems, crop tops, transformable shorts that, upon movement, turn into skirts, and more. It’s fashion that is conscious of human movement, touch, feeling, suffering, and also an acknowledgement that there is healing, and there is change.
6:00 PM
LAURA GERTE
BERLIN CONTEMPORARY
Laura Gerte’s collection “Desire/Chaos” is linked with feminine intuition, beauty and complexity. A brand that is all about “confidence and sustainability”, it taps into the feminine world through its designs. Garments which mirror impulses of desire, impermanence, womanhood, pleasure, beauty, rage and more, it includes skin-tight mesh and florals of silk, “draped” T-shirts and “distressed” jersey. It’s fashion that emphasizes feminine brilliance but also complexity, frustration and intensity. Notably, the collection also includes the designer Laura Gerte’s signature feel, which is “thick piping, smocked silk, patchwork prints and trompe l’oeil”.



TUESDAY, JULY 1
11:00 AM – 1:00 PM
RAUM.BERLIN: JULIAN ZIGERLI
JULIAN ZIGERLI, an innovative Swiss brand, came to Berlin Fashion Week with an amazing fashion exhibition and a pop-up shop that features a collaborative collection titled “THE LIMIT DOES NOT EXIST” with ANDI FISCHER. The fashion exhibition, which is a part of Berlin Fashion Week’s Show Schedule, took place at RAUM.BERLIN alongside the brands DAGGER and IDEN. The pop-up shop, which is a part of the fashion week’s Side Events, took place on July 2-3 at Leipziger Strasse 60, 10117 Berlin (next to Julia Stoschek Foundation). Its collection features incredible “bold prints and vibrant pieces”.
Notably, the brand creates fashion that is “highly technical”, “easy to wear” and “functional”. It is innovative, unique and understands the beauty of designing timeless fashion that will be cherished forever. In other words, Julian Zigerli is a brand to keep an eye on!
1:00 PM
REBEKKA RUÉTZ
A brand that is all about progressive fashion, rebekka ruétz is guided by sustainability and quality, avante-garde design and beautiful boldness and minimalism. It is a brand that is unafraid to be itself and embraces imperfection. Its new collection at Berlin Fashion Week is one that is described as being “a journey toward a wild and free self”. It includes bold and beautiful colors that have unique symbolisms: raven black and peat brown representing rediscovery, and soft gold and a twinkling silver symbolizing inner growth. In addition to this, it also has authentic materials that symbolize something special: coffee leather which represents transformation, and vegan leather which reflects responsibility and awareness. Organic cotton and organic denim, to note, are the materials that “form the foundation of the collection”. It’s a timeless, liberating collection that allows the soul to think, observe inwardly, and reflect.
2:00 PM
PALMWINE ICECREAM
Founded by the amazing designer Kusi Kubi, PALMWINE IceCREAM is a sustainable fashion and accessories brand that embraces the following values: Reconstruct, Re-use, and Reduce. It is an innovative, eco-conscious brand that repurposes existing materials, dead-stock and craftsmanship. They not only strive to minimize environmental impact and [embrace] an inclusive approach to gender expression, their founder beautifully applies authenticity, Ghanaian culture, storytelling and craftsmanship into each design, which tells a story of resilience, beauty and love.
The brand’s newest collection, which is a tribute to the women in the designer’s personal life, focuses on womenswear. Pieces (such as ballerina corset and leather blazers) designed with love and care in collaboration with Ghanaian artisans, it features materials of deadstock cotton, organza, mesh and upcycled leather naturally dyed with tree bark. This collection, then, is an amazing one to look out for!
8:00 PM
BUZIGAHILL
BUZIGAHILL is a Kampala-based label founded by creative director and designer Bobby Kolade. It is making a comeback in the SS26 season of Berlin Fashion Week with the designer’s eleventh collection RTS11. It is a collection that is a continuation of the RETURN TO SENDER project, a powerful and defiant act that “represents BUZIGAHILL’S ability to participate in the global contexts of art, fashion and politics by creating critical and desirable products and reversing the MOVEMENT of waste”, as by the designer. The collection, then, is a powerful reflection of the brand’s values, which is redesigning second-hand garments from Europe, North America and Asia and bringing them back to the Global North. It embraces the power of authenticity, origin and refusal, refusing to “remain stuck at the end of the second-hand supply chain”, as additionally and beautifully by the designer.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 2
5:00 PM
DANNY REINKE
Uber Arena
Danny Reinke is a fashion label founded by Danny Reinke and Julien Kelch. A label with a core focus on sustainability, it produces elegant designs that embrace “a unique sense of personal style and body awareness”. With high-quality craftsmanship and the use of eco-friendly materials and practices, it is a brand that is unmatched when it comes to caring for the environment, approaching art in a way that is beautiful, timeless but also eco-conscious.
In addition to the brand presenting its newest collection “The Hunt”, it is also celebrating the premiere of The C4DR – Collection for Doctors, a non-profit collection opening the Danny Reinke show at the COLLECTIVEFOUR Space in the Uber Arena. It is a collection of the COLLECTIVEFOUR designers Danny Reinke, Marcel Ostertag, and Kilian Kerner, made for doctors in the fields of oncology and hematology. It includes five thoughtfully designed pieces (a hoodie jacket, a t-shirt, pants, a modular utility bag, and socks) made with care for doctors. Clothing that is functional, fashionable and easy-to-wear, and beautifully acknowledges and appreciates doctors who help save the world, because they matter, too.
7:00 PM
MARCEL OSTERTAG
Uber Arena
Marcel Ostertag, the innovative designer and founder of the namesake label, developed his fashion expertise at Central St. Martins College in London, UK. He started Marcel Ostertag with the inspiring “vision of having a sustainable production, high-quality materials and fair production conditions”.
The brand’s SS26 collection “PARADISE” – which will be presented at the COLLECTIVEFOUR Space in the Uber Arena alongside the respective shows of brands Danny Reinke and Kilian Kerner – is inspired by Baroque-era opulence, 70s-era glamour, and the vibrant energy of the 90s techno rave culture era (featuring electronic beats). Featuring incredible baroque detail, 70s-era silhouettes and the vibrant energy of the 90s, it is regarded as a collection that celebrates life, togetherness and joy. Because of the brand’s core focus on sustainability, 70% of the collection is created from dead-stock fabrics, which is amazing in itself.


BERLIN FASHION WEEK – SIDE EVENTS
MONDAY, JUNE 30
7:00 PM
VANESSA BAERNTHOL
Vanessa Baernthol is an incredible, eponymous fashion brand founded by fashion designer Vanessa Baernthol. Based in Berlin, it produces timeless designs and collections that reflect the designer’s “architectural approach to fashion and strong commitment to sustainable production. Past collections such as ‘REBUILT’ FW25 at Berlin Fashion Week was regarded as an amazing collection “that deconstructs and redefines layering as an artistic and functional practice”.
On Monday, June 30, it presented its newest SS26 collection titled “VENEER”, as part of Berlin Fashion Week’s Side Events.
TUESDAY, JULY 1
11:00 AM – 8:00 PM
HUMAN TOUCH READY-TO-WEAR DEBUT
NADAN / WILHELMSAUE 1
Human Touch, co-founded by creative directors Christina Albrecht and Juliet Seger-Banks, is a unique fashion brand that embraces paint-sewing, its signature technique that embraces the authenticity of design.
It’s a brand that “showcases the human labor that we all rely on to make our clothes: With hands covered in paint during the sewing process, the fingerprints of tailors, workers, machinists become visible on the garment”.
It is releasing its first ready-to-wear collection, “artefacts”, at Berlin Fashion Week SS26. A collection that houses twelve looks, it includes “original pieces manufactured entirely with the unique paint-sewing technique”. Additionally, it features structured silk organza, clean-cut cotton wovens and viscose-silk plissees described as “dreamy”. “artefacts” is indeed a unique, thrilling collection, one that embraces the art and authenticity of paint-sewing, and the beauty, production and engineering of design.
THURSDAY, JULY 3
1:00 PM
ESTHER PERBANDT
Esther Perbandt is an eponymous, premium fashion and jewelry brand founded by Esther Perbandt in 2004. A contemporary fashion designer, visionary, performer and “mistress of ceremonies”, she is a multi-talented designer that embraces the avante-garde style.
For her latest collection, “BLACK TAILORED SUMMER”, to be presented at Berlin Fashion Week via an exclusive sartorial installation, it is a culmination and pinnacle of the designer’s “five-year transformation from expressive showpieces to sophisticated, gender-neutral tailoring”. It is an innovative and unique collection that is inspired by heritage menswear and “softened by individuality”.
Design features include: a signature monochrome palette and a central design motif that “reimagines the typically hidden waistband as a visible, celebrated element”. A collection that embraces gender fluidity, elegance and sophistication, it features its lovely designs across nine models, accompanied by the large-format fashion photography of Sylwia Makris.
After the exclusive installation, the collection will be available for view and purchase at the Esther Perbandt store in Berlin-Mitte.
“Esther Perbandt describes her fashion as an act of (post)feminism irrespective of gender: personality, autonomy and individuality are at the center of her avante-garde style.” – Esther Perbandt.
Highlight Image:
© Rebekka Ruetz SS26 Runway by Chelsea Claire