German fashion designer Marla Jobst returns to KALTBLUT with Wanderchild, a debut collection exploring liminality, transformation and the experience of existing between worlds. Situated within a space where boundaries begin to dissolve, Wanderchild investigates states of in-betweenness: between belonging and estrangement, concealment and revelation, memory and invention, the earthly and the otherworldly.
The collection does not seek to define a destination, but instead inhabits the threshold itself – a suspended condition in which identities, places and narratives remain fluid and unresolved.
Throughout the collection, figures emerge through layers of transparency, veiling and fragmentation. Faces are obscured, silhouettes transformed and bodies partially concealed, creating characters that resist fixed interpretation. Rather than presenting complete identities, Wanderchild constructs presences that seem to exist simultaneously in multiple states, suspended between appearance and disappearance.
Materiality plays a central role in this world-building process. Deconstructed ballet shoes sourced from former professional dancers are embedded throughout the garments as remnants of discipline, endurance and adaptation. Fragments of vintage lace, crystallised letters, preserved maple seeds and delicate organic interventions are suspended between layers of translucent construction, existing somewhere between preservation and decay, memory and transformation.
Organic forms repeatedly interrupt and challenge the structure of the garments. A sleeve constructed from woven willow branches extends beyond the logic of the body, while crystallised elements, fragmented surfaces and sculptural interventions blur distinctions between garment, relic and artefact. These materials do not function as decoration but as narrative devices, carrying traces of transition, displacement and becoming.
Subtle influences drawn from Jobst’s childhood near the Baltic Sea surface as distant echoes throughout the collection. Rather than direct references, they appear as fragments woven into a personal mythology: sailor-inspired forms dissolve into mantilla veiling, familiar symbols become estranged, and historical associations are transformed into something dreamlike and undefined.
Custom-styled wigs and sculptural headpieces further destabilise conventional readings of identity, creating figures that seem caught between ritual, memory and imagination. The resulting world is neither entirely real nor entirely fictional, but occupies a liminal territory of its own.
Wanderchild ultimately proposes fashion as a form of emotional and spatial world-building. Through layered material narratives, fragmented symbolism and sculptural transformation, the collection creates a landscape inhabited by those who exist between states – between worlds, between different versions of themselves.
Designer: Marla Jobst @marlagmarjorie
Photography & Videography: Sidney Erbe @sidneyerbe
Assistant Photographer: Carmen Böttcher @carmenbpunkt
Styling: Marla Jobst @marlagmarjorie
Hair & Make-up:
Marla Jobst @marlagmarjorie
Katharina Marie Alt @kathialt
Emilie Fantine Horst @j3mys_
Models:
Angelita Ghen @angelitasfortress
Romy Sophie Lucia Herbsleb @romys0phie
Grace Kerkhof @grace.74111
Production Assistants:
Fabio Bengsch @fabiobengsch
Emilia Marie Schmidt-Funke @emiliamarie.sf
