Le Cosulat’s post-industrial setting proved the perfect backdrop for GmbH’s ferocious return to Paris yesterday evening. Aptly titled “Survival Strategies”, Serhat Isik and Benjamin Huseby’s SS19 design feat is unabashedly personal, drawing on the pair’s differing immigrant backgrounds (which have inspired their work and ethos from the get-go) and celebrating the beauty of diversity. It also marked a series of firsts for the brand — the first handbag, complete with a handle riffing on the recurrent hammer emblem, and GmbH’s first official endeavour into womenswear.
For a brand so firmly rooted in the Berlin techno scene — manifested in industrial-inspired workwear and refined, structural sport layers — this season GmbH transcend the clubwear aesthetic for which they’ve become so renowned, setting belted scarlet suits and embroidered gold coin-dot fabrics against more elastic panelled neon strap tops and bold zipped denim. The brand’s coveted PVC pants make a lively return in orange and turquoise colourways, while saris, handwoven in India (echoing the one Huseby’s Norweigan mother wore on her wedding day to his Pakistani father), are re-fashioned into elegant shirts that balance the edgier elements of the collection, like gold metal gloves.
Last season saw GmbH set the bar for diversity casting, with a 71% MOC ratio — an unparalleled percentage in the global fashion circuit — and last night’s “Survival Strategies” proved no less impressive. The Ben Grimes-cast show saw a string of fresh faces gracing the runway including, none other than trans activist and DJ, Honey Dijon, and mature beauty and Yves Saint Laurent muse, Amalia Vairelli.
Decidedly fierce, yet elegantly understated, “Survival Strategies” is as subdued as it is sexy. And with it, GmbH is doing more than just surviving — it’s thriving.