Who is DB Berdan

Before we get any further let’s give them proper introduction. DB Berdan was founded in 2013 by Deniz Berdan. Her daughter joined the company in 2015, right after graduating from London College of Fashion. It is a street wear brand originally from Turkey, currently based in London. Label that drew the inspiration from social rights movements, 80’s and 90’s club scene and underground rave culture, driven by freedom of speech and sense of pride.

DB Berdan collections focus on genderless clothing and eradication of hetero normality, aiming to unite a community of like-minded individuals, that are not defined by sex, race or gender. Their socially advanced garments embrace every part of postmodern society, their designs bring a sense of pride and freedom of speech to their collections. Story telling through designs and prints, DB Berdan don’t shy away from expressing themselves as much as they can and constantly pushing boundaries.

Fashion is one of the most powerful tools how to tell a story and DB Berdan know that. Being proud advocates of the diversity and LGBTQ community, when Pride was banned from the streets of Istanbul, they brought the celebration to their catwalk in protest; they campaigned for LGBTQ rights in Turkey. When Boris Johnson (current UK Prime Minister) said one of his very controversial comments on women wearing burka – calling them bank robbers, DB Berdan made a statement by saying “this is not a bank robbery” with a runway look. You simply must love them as they are using their power to advocate for those who might not be able to advocate for themselves.

They aren’t a newbie in LFW, they had their main schedule debut last year, when they presented an amazing “Self-Love Club” collection, where they got inspired by very dominating sports club industry and turned it into an all gender inclusive activity, embracing each other ‘s differences.

Scan to Escape

So, we are sure you understand how incredibly excited we were to see the new collection. Collection called ‘Scan to escape’ merges reality with digital world. Prints that consist of technological QR codes that are scannable with phones, takes you from one reality to another. Into a new digital multimedia world that welcomes newcomers of the escapees from apocalypse once QR code is scanned. “It is a sort of an escape from the how the world is ending, you can escape through the QR code to this fun place.” - he declared to Luxiders Magazine.

Synthesizing eco conscious materials with tech gear, DB Berdan immensely focused on sourcing environmental fabrics and accessories. The collection consists of the silhouette of super cinched asymmetric cut of dresses, skirts ad tops from recycled multi stretch activewear polyester, finished using high tech bonding materials and laser cut ventilations under arms and joints.

“This season we really wanted to give back to the community and making the collection environmentally friendly”.

They worked together with Turkish Denim Mill ORTA, using ethically sourced denims and technologically advanced fabrics. They introduced big sleeved bomber jacket denim dress, made with ORTA’s Gen H, eco-wise Hemp fabric or incredible bat sleeved roped cyber jacket and roped pants, made of recycled denim fabric obtained from post-consumer recycled cotton, that we absolutely felt in love with and can’t wait to get our hands on some of those pieces.

“We aim to create a more robust denim ecosystem where art (design) meets ethics for new infinite possibilities of denim today and tomorrow”

Oversized hoodies turned into flowy dresses, finished off with reflective bonding and jointed combat pants, asymmetric cut dresses. All the accessories used in this collection were ethically made, including the zips which are made of blue plastic caps from water bottles, snaps made with reduced water usage or the ropes from recycled polyester. Extravagant skeletal jewellery was made by EXO. Exo aims to promote the eternal wisdom and immortality of nature. Ethically sourced animal bones, resurrected within aesthetic and mystic boundaries, honor the endless inspiration of mother nature.

This season DB Berdan also worked with various independent artist. The QR digital multimedia world is generated by unique set of London based artists. Technological hand-crafted mechanic LED head pieces, that were such a fun to watch and add that extra art feel to the garments, have been custom made by Linh Dan. The model that was closing the show was stunning nonbinary pop star Dorian Electra, with such a powerful walk and appearance that made us all stare and fall in love with (not only with the jacket and joggers she was wearing). Diverse and powerful cast of models of different age, shape, gender and skin colour, while all looking absolutely stunning might have been our favourite part and just underlined the brand’s inclusivity.

Overall it was an amazing show, that gives us hope in the future. There are still lots of stereotypes surrounding sustainable brands and lot of people still see sustainable fashion as something unfashionable. We are glad that DB Berdan are breaking those stereotypes, while creating their own rules and showing everyone that you can be a street wear brand and still care about the people and the planet.