Backstage at Vanessa Baernthol Fall/Winter 2026 – SPHERE

Vanessa Baernthol presented her Fall/Winter 2026 collection, titled “SPHERE,” during Berlin Fashion Week, showcasing her renowned architectural approach to fashion and a strong commitment to sustainable practices. This latest collection explores layering as both an artistic and functional endeavour, setting the stage for a thought-provoking intersection of fashion and architecture.

The runway show took place at the Schinkel Pavillon, an art gallery in Berlin-Mitte, where its architectural clarity and intriguing interplay of structure and transparency provided a fitting backdrop for “SPHERE.” The venue’s octagonal geometry and glass-steel facade echoed the collection’s central themes of water, transformation, and the spiral, a powerful symbol of continuous flow. Throughout the presentation, the interplay of light, reflections, and shifting perspectives activated the space, enabling an ongoing dialogue among fashion, body, and architecture.

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The rhythm and movement of the collection were underscored by a dynamic soundscape, with the audience arranged in a circular formation, thus becoming part of the performance itself. As the music crescendoed, models entered the runway with a commanding presence, traversing two levels of the gallery. The spiral runway design invited them to move both inward and outward, encapsulating a dynamic interplay of expansion and compression—a metaphor for renewal and progress.

“SPHERE” serves as a return to Baernthol’s origins, drawing inspiration from her signature pearl corsets and sculptural compositions of rounded forms. This new collection revisits these elements within a contemporary context, creating an atmospheric dialogue between fashion and architecture that emphasises form, movement, and transformation.

The colour palette is characterised by deep tones such as black, midnight blue, and steel grey, alongside softer shades of washed greys, dark browns, and gentle pinks, grounding the collection’s sculptural shapes in a subtle presence. Key silhouettes emerge as architectural gestures, balanced between sculptural quality and dynamism, informed by layering, draping, and volume, responsive to movement, gravity, and the surrounding environment.

“SPHERE” positions fashion within a broader spatial context, merging architecture, sound, and movement to craft an immersive experience. The spiral motif embodies movement and development, bridging centre and periphery, inside and outside, beginning and end into a fluid continuum. This aspect reflects the notion of becoming, suggesting an open process rather than a closed cycle. Central to the collection is water, a symbol of perpetual transformation, echoing how fashion reshapes the bodies it encounters and highlighting the intricate layers of ecological, aesthetic, and societal responsibility in fashion production.