Bernhard Willhelm gave us a quick interview just minutes before embarking on a gymnastic floor drill. We gave him 8 points for the shoulder stand and ran the image in the magazine. But we wouldn’t want to keep the rest away from you! So we put them on our website. More images after the interview.
The first German designer to come out of Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Bernhard Willhelm belongs to the so-called second generation of designers who continue the avant-garde legacy of the Antwerp Six. But while these designers opted for London, Willhelm headed for Paris. Though Berlin is not necessarily on his axis of fashion cities, his biggest show to date was held here in 2009. “It was a one-of-a-kind experience. We had to think big, very big, to fill the space. In Paris it’s the other way around, you have to consider the limits of both budget and space.”
This winter, he returned to Berlin to participate in a show curated by the Antwerp fashion museum MoMu, alongside Peter Pilotto, Henrik Vibskov and MikioSakabe. Willhelm collaborated closely with the museum to which he donated ten pieces from each of his collections. Would he consider doing a show in Berlin again? “What works in Berlin is sportswear, jeans and Scandinavian labels. The culture of high fashion doesn’t exist here, not since World War II. It’s difficult for young designers; they show good collections but at the end of the day, who sees them? The international press doesn’t come here.”
What binds him to Berlin however is the flourishing art scene. “We often collaborate with Berlin artists. Karsten Fock did our logos and invites, we worked with Marc Brandenburg and I collaborated on the first issue of Butt magazine with Wolfgang Tillmans. It was my contribution to showing nudity in fashion.”