Photography: Andrew Alberts
PHOTOGRAPHY: THOMAS HAUSER WRITERS: NILS BINNBERG, JONATHAN BELLBerlin practice Trutz Von Stuckrad Penner
has created a modern iteration of the city’s
traditional tenement with its new building
on Niederbarnimstrasse. Apartment housing
is rapidly returning to central Berlin, and
many of the block’s collection of 18 flexible,
open-plan apartments are complemented
by terraces or balconies – the intention was
to create a social mix with a variety of scales,
including duplexes and one-bedroom
apartments. With a cobbled inner courtyard
finished with white walls and plain dark
wooden windows, along with glazed ceramic
bricks, it harks back to earlier designs.
This is particularly evident in the interiors,
which are hard-wearing but luxuriously
spacious, with oak parquet paired with
polished concrete. The common staircase
is especially successful, its grid of porcelain
stoneware tiles and elegant curving steel
balustrade creating a sense of identity that
evokes the best of the city’s historical design.
trutzvonstuckradpenner.deBlock tacticsG
SHIRT, €225; TROUSERS,
€375, BOTH FROM GMBH’S
S/S18 COLLECTIONmbH is the standard legal acronym for
a limited company in Germany, but there
is nothing either limited or corporate
about the maverick Berlin-based fashion
label that adopted that tag. ‘We didn’t
like the combination of our names,’
says Benjamin Alexander Huseby, who
co-founded the brand with Serhat Isik,
‘so we decided to be nameless.’
The utilitarian moniker also nods to the
city’s anti-fashion attitude. ‘Berlin has
this element of being anti-corporate, and
against the mainstream,’ says Huseby.
‘That is also how we think about things.’
The GmbH studio is located in a large
industrial building in Kreuzberg, which
also houses the techno club Ritter
Butzke – a rare reminder of the district’s
wilder days, as most other nearby spaces
are being turned into luxury flats. ‘It
has been a building site since we moved
in a year ago,’ says Huseby. ‘It’s quite
stressful. But it kind of adds to our
aesthetic.’ For this, think traditional
workwear, such as a fitted take on
German carpenter trousers, in vintage,
deadstock and club-friendly materials
such as reflective polyester.
When the first collection, named after
the techno anthem ‘When A Thought
Becomes You’, launched in 2016, it was
immediately picked up by Opening
Ceremony. Last year, GmbH was
shortlisted for the LVMH Prize for young
designers. ‘It’s the casual approach
and sophisticated shapes that make
the designs feel exciting,’ says Herbert
Hofmann of Berlin’s Voo Store. ‘Their
diverse customer base is inspiring too.’GmbH’s founders are nothing if not
diverse: Huseby was born to a
Norwegian mother and Pakistani father
and grew up in the Scandinavian
countryside; Isik is a first-generation
German of Turkish descent who was
raised in the industrial Ruhr area. When
mutual friends introduced them on a
club’s dance floor, Isik had just left Berlin
collective Bless and was working on
his own menswear label. Huseby was
a fashion photographer, shooting for
respected magazines and brands. ‘I saw
that together we could realise some
of our ideas quite easily,’ he explains.
The duo is interested in the utilitarian
clothes they see on their friends or on
the street. They subvert these everyday
looks into what they call ‘idealised’
pieces. Their A/W17 collection showed
cropped blousons built from cut-and-
sewn vintage Helly Hansen puffer
jackets, and high-waisted patchwork
cargo pants that were instant hits.
Although GmbH offers plenty of looks
for partygoers, clubwear isn’t the only
source of inspiration. Instead, there’s
a strong autobiographical theme.
The starting point for the duo’s S/S18
offering was their fathers’ dress codes.
Isik’s father was a mine worker;
Huseby’s worked in a video store, and
was obsessed with flashy 1980s Italian
fashion. Respectively, they inspired
fleece jackets (as worn for cold, early
morning starts) and the gold Cupro
or silver viscose and linen mix that
runs through the collection.
gmbhofficial.comGermany
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