Perhaps the most quintessential Berlin-based label among the city’s contemporary fashion stratosphere, the Lala Berlin show took place on Friday evening in Mitte’s Opern Werkstätten. The fashion crowd gathered in a warehouse entirely transformed into what could well be described as ‘hot tropics in the city’. They could hear the sounds of animals and birds in the background; the decorative greenery made one dream moving to the Amazonian forest for a day or two and UV lights decked onto the glowing models’ skin, enhancing their Seventies´ hairdos and bright lipstick. The show opened with an all-white look: a finely-knitted, almost transparent sweater, patterned with what looked like tiger scars, paired with bermuda tailored shorts and leather-heeled sandals. Appropriately titled ‘On Some Far Away Beach’, the collection comprised some killer statements. These included a black crochet mini dress (think half-halter top with mini sleeves), shorts and jackets with hues of nudes and pastel blue and – probably the star piece – a white knitted sweater with sleeves casually divided into chunky but sculpted bits, cheekily showing-off some skin. All we know is that far away beach has the word glamour embedded onto the welcome sign.
But before the show (which, we should add, was impeccably styled by Sleek’s own fashion director Isabelle Thiry), we caught up with Leyla Piedayesh, founder and designer of the now cult label where she talked about her love of Berlin, the Lala woman and her continuous sources of inspiration.
Sleek: What were the inspirations for this collection? Leyla Piedayesh: The inspiration was a faraway beach. Why you would want to hang out, what is happening there… There’s a lot of florals with sleeves, we have parrots, a light blue with a little bit of yellow, we have very little sharks as prints in the collection which are very abstract. This was the beach feeling we wanted. And then of course to come back to the universe where we really live in, which is Germany and the urbanization, you can see some breaking leather and other materials.
So would you say you tend to be more inspired by places? Well to be honest this question is really hard to answer because you never simply say, ‘oh I’m inspired by this or that’. You mostly are inspired by everything. You might be my inspiration for next time because I see something and I think ‘oh, black and pink are really cool together’ [Editor’s note: she was referring to the ensemble worn by Sleek’s writer, Tania Farouki]. You know what I mean? It’s really hard to say. I’m not really inspired by places but I am inspired by my life. Wherever I go there is an inspiration, there is something hidden that you can take as an inspiration. Last season I was really inspired by my little baby. So everything was pink.
So what kind of fabrics did you use? Any interesting new things? We wanted to do some knitwear because it’s one of our strongest themes that we usually do and it’s really hard to do nice knitwear for summer. You can do nice knitwear but it’s mostly hanging and loose. So I wanted to make something a little more sculptural. And of course we used thick yarns. We did the binding with most of the things that you see in the show, so they totally have a sculptural front. It was quite important for me that we could work with our knitwear for the show, so you have pieces that keep the form.. We did a really nice piece with a hand-stitched shirt stitched with leather. We used leather for the first time here. We also used suede.
In general who do you design for? Who is the Lala woman? The first thing I do is check the clothes and try them on. I would say that first of all, I design for myself, which is the best because you can see how it’s working, how it feels. How is the button, how is the neckline, even though everyone has a different body. But actually, I design for girls and women like me.
Could you describe to us your relationship with Berlin? How does it fuel your creativity? Why Berlin compared to other cities, like New York, Paris or London? I lived in London and Munich before coming to Berlin. I went to other capitals but to me Berlin seemed like the only choice. London made me feel kind of squeezed and Berlin gave me this freedom of being able to breathe. I still love Berlin after 12 years, even though it’s changed a lot. It remains free and open, with space to breathe, and that makes me so happy. It also gives you endless inspiration, although you’re totally into the circus of working now. I love Berlin. I don’t think I would live in any other capital. At the moment I’m thinking about going to the countryside…
This feels like a much bigger production than last year. Obviously you’re not showing at the tent but off site. So what’s going on with business, have you been growing? I hope to do it again next season. We are growing constantly, so we are also stepping into the international market. It’s quite important to step out of Berlin. But I still believe I’m quite focused on the German market since it’s my main market. But we are heading towards the international market. Thankfully we are doing better year after year.
You have two flagship stores, one in Berlin and one in Copenhagen. Any plans of eventually opening somewhere else? I am managing the whole thing on my own, which means my capacity is becoming a little bit tight at one point or another. The growth needs to be totally controlled and stabilized, so I don’t want to make too many steps ahead. Of course there is a concrete plan of what I want to do for the next five to ten years. The structure of the whole system, to keep people going. Even if you have four more people you have to be there and be able to keep it running. So I would say plans are there but it has to be fulfilled step by step…
By Tania Farouki