Fashion x Craft: Echoes of Tomorrow

Analog Arts in Digital Times

Can craftsmanship be interpreted as an exchange of experiences across generations? Is it possible to continue a dialogue about a profoundly analog art form in the digital age? And how will future generations remember traditional techniques – can they be preserved and further developed? Five young fashion designers grappled intensively with these questions over several months.


"We envisioned a universe in which this memory takes shape as nostalgia – like a reminiscence where it's impossible to distinguish between what is real and what is imagined," say Aleksander Kudrischow, Laura De Sousa, Lennart Bohle, Jon Liesenfeld, and Melanie Parzenczewki of the V-Collective. “In this world, craftsmanship re-emerges in new forms: some details remain vivid, others blur, dissolve, and merge into a hybrid, futuristic vision of craftsmanship.”

Based on this intellectual and practical exploration, the collection “Echoes of Tomorrow” was created and is presented in the Gemäldegalerie. The exhibition invites visitors to rediscover traditional techniques, explore their contemporary interpretations, and reflect on the fashion of tomorrow.

A Year of Experimentation and Creation

The V-Collective consists of participants in the Fashion x Craft initiative. This support program of the Fashion Council Germany, realized in cooperation with eBay Germany and The King’s Foundation, is aimed at young fashion and textile designers and combines the key themes of sustainability, craftsmanship, and innovation.

Through residencies at the Good Garment Collective in Berlin and at a King’s Foundation site in Highgrove, England, the participants took part in comprehensive workshops and intensive mentoring programs. They were introduced to artisanal processes that extend far beyond traditional fashion and textile production. This year's program saw the V-Collective emerge with a 24-piece fashion collection.

The designs are based on a variety of crafts taught throughout the project year – including natural dyeing techniques, weaving, and bobbin lace, as well as unconventional methods such as basket weaving and metal and woodworking. All pieces were made from so-called deadstock materials, meaning unused fabrics and fibers from the inventories of larger companies.

Raw studio wall in the institutional space

The garments in the collection are exhibited as a stage installation. The Gemäldegalerie's spaces play a crucial role in the exhibition concept: The V-Collective's show in the rear of the gallery's foyer contrasts the museum-like perfection of the exhibition space—which Dior's creative director, Jonathan Anderson, recently described as one of the most beautiful museum spaces in the world—with a somewhat stark, raw wall design featuring plaster and paint remnants. Complemented by fabric hangings, collages, and sketches, this creates the impression of an artist's studio wall, atmospherically transferring the collection's development process into the institutional space of the Gemäldegalerie and making it tangible.

Opening during Fashion Week

The exhibition will be officially opened during Berlin Fashion Week. Simultaneously, the exhibition "Gallery Looks: Fashion Staging in the Gemäldegalerie" will be on display in the front of the foyer. It brings art from the past into a dynamic dialogue with contemporary fashion—in design, photography, film, and haute couture.

A special exhibition of the Gemäldegalerie of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Picture Gallery of the National Museums in Berlin)