For SCHAU25, seven visionary UdK graduates transcended traditional garment design to conjure a vivid portrait of their ideal wearers. Their inspirations? A daring ensemble of family, friends, lovers, and Berlin’s most stylish connoisseurs gathered in powerful solidarity.
Elizaveta EfimovaSCHAU25 embodies more than just a fashion presentation; it serves as a collective experiment, an immersive spatial installation, and a bold act of defiance. The graduates confront the urgent dilemmas of our era and the ever-evolving landscape of the fashion industry. In a world fraught with political upheaval, dwindling resources, and limited prospects for emerging talent, what significance does a temporary fashion showcase hold? And who stands to witness this moment?
Photographer Lexi Sun artfully captured the essence of the graduates and their testimonies throughout the SCHAU25 event.
Charlotte Golz approaches sustainability not as a constraint, but as joy. Her collection explores how thoughtful design can spark self-expression and reduce overconsumption. Multiple Garderobe adapts to the wearer’s life through adjustable sizing, modular components, and styling freedom, offering everyday clothing that changes with you, rather than being replaced.
Mascha Berger’s work lives at the intersection of fashion and digital subculture. In BECOMING MY ALTER EGO, she plays with the aesthetics of online identity, where gaming tropes, virtual avatars, and physical-world stereotypes endlessly mirror each other. Her collection explores the freedom of switching between selves, rejecting narrow norms in favour of multiplicity, empowerment, and a little digital drama.
Viccha Kreng, a designer with a background in graphic design, brings a speculative edge to knitwear. Her project, Dark Oxygen, imagines a deep-sea world built entirely from yarn, a safe space to escape, reflect, and challenge norms. Through sculptural knits, sound, and visuals, she reconsiders beauty standards and body ideals, blending digital technology with handcraft in a tactile rebellion against the fashion mainstream.
Mila Dormeier’s collection explores the tension between individuality and conformity, particularly within professional settings. Her garments respond to the question, “What do I wear when things get serious?” Rethinking officewear through transformable silhouettes, her designs carve space for selfhood in systems that often demand uniformity.
Elizaveta Efimova treats fashion as a sculptural language, something emotional, philosophical, and alive. Her project Lykomorye draws on Slavic folklore to create wearable myths. Shaped through dense textures, raw materials, and archetypal forms, her garments don’t just tell stories, they become them. Using deadstock and repurposed materials, she focuses on transformation, memory, and the unseen forces that shape us.
Elizaveta Efimova
Philip Welp pushes boundaries with unconventional materials, textures, and surface treatments. His dystopian collection Panopticon transforms fashion into a statement on surveillance, control, and resistance. Supported by ECCO, Philip also designed three unique shoe styles, each crafted in multiple variations using his custom leather. The collection’s visual narrative unfolds a divided society: Rulers, People, and Riots. Here, fashion is not just clothing but a critical, conceptual, and aesthetically radical tool for reflecting social tensions.
Titia Grefe’s Girl It Up! collection uses digital innovation and unconventional garment construction to explore women’s empowerment and celebrate girl culture. The It-Girl, both praised and criticised, shapes her life on her terms but often has her influence overlooked in favour of male power. This project reclaims girly power through the fictional It-Girl @apopofnoir, creating fashion that prioritises girls’ needs with humour and practicality, without catering to men. Each look captures a different side of the It-Girl lifestyle, celebrating the joy and strength of being a girl.
Photography: Lexi Sun @gieesio
Talents:
Mascha Berger @prewozny supported by Sevil Uguz @sevil_uguz and Marte Hentschel @marte.hentschel
Katalin Gennburg @politikinmode wearing Charlotte Golz @charlotte.golz
Philip Welp @philip.welp and Sophia Nordhausen @sophiwa
Titia Grefe @titiagrefe with Nina @sublimeawe, Emma @p.oechi & Aisha @aishadomingos
Mila Dormeier @mi.la_md supported by Marcel Schultt @marcel_schlutt and Mira von der Osten
@vkreng with Josefa @josefa_sophie_, Noëlle @noelle.ako and Viseth @viseth.kreng
Una Ryu @0_un4_0 wearing Elizaveta Efimova @gautamma
Hair & Make-Up: Jasmin Erb @jasmin_erb & Emily Zanon @emilyznoon_
