Wearable art? Casual yet avant-garde fashion? That’s exactly what we discovered on day two of our search thanks to TISSUE magazine’s Uwe Jens Bermeitinger suggesting we go visit fashion collective Hui-Hui in their Hamburg headquarters. Two of its three members Anne Schwätzler and Katharina Trudzinski (Katharina’s sister Johanna was back in Antwerp where she’s based) were busy working on the latest collection while they waited for us on the stoop of their warehouse studio. Katharina, the label’s textile designer (and also an artist with her own practice), was embroidering a red, orange, beige and grey pattern onto a white cloth. “As an artist colours are very important to me. Subconsciously I’m into certain colours that make something happen on an emotional level.” The piece of handicraft Katharina was working on will later become a digital print that will find itself onto a Hui-Hui design – perhaps something similar to the fluttering, mid drift, silk top Katharina was wearing from their latest collection.
What makes this indie label so successful is the girls’ ability to fuse art and fashion while being subtle on the thematics. “We don’t sit down a search for a theme or idea – it just happens as we work together,” explained Anne. Katharina adds: “Once we’ve finished a collection we long to do things differently and exactly that is the starting point to the next collection.” After the girls took us inside to show where it is they work (in a former, light-flooded photography studio with an attached bike work shop) we hopped back int our Mercedes-Benz CLS 500 and hit the road again – this time in the direction of Copenhagen.
Read more about Sleek and mb! Magazine’s road trip in the summer issue, publishing soon.