What Berlin’s fashion scene lacks in professionalism and prestige it makes up in personality and approachability – Blame being the perfect ambassador for this attitude. Sarah Büren and Sonja Hodzode don’t take the fashion game too seriously: “Sometimes when we are stressed out, designing in the middle of the night we just start laughing because it’s just fashion. It’s not the end of the world.”
It is in their Kreuzberg hinterhof studio, which they share with a men’s wear tailor and a noisy group of men fixing car tires out front, that the two create their vintage-meets-zeitgeist fearless fashion that has won them the Premium Young Designer Award for women’s wear and has brought them into the final round of Start Your Own Fashion Business (winner to be announced on the 6th of July). Meet Blame:
Sleek: Where do you come from and how do you know each other?
Sarah Büren: I’m from Duesseldorf and Sonja is from Saarbruecken. We met during our studies in Trier where we worked on projects together and lived together.
Sonja Hodzode: It was our dream to have label together but it wasn’t really planned and then it just happened. Sarah came over to my place for a weekend and we put our designs together and noticed that they really went well together. We designed a couple of things together and the collection was finished!
SB: It was a very organic process with no concept and that’s still how we work now.
You aim for your designs to be wearable for more than just a couple of seasons. The fashion world isn’t really known for its longevity. How do you approach this challenge?
SB: We have a very classical approach. We don’t do things that are really art or obviously based on some short term trend. We follow our personal taste.
What’s behind the name Blame?
SB: It’s a bit of humour and tongue-in-cheek to express that we don’t take fashion too seriously.
SH: It’s a name with a negative connotation but hopefully if the collections are good the name will resonate more positively!
Your designs are for the modern woman. What, for you, is the modern woman?
SB: A woman who is confident and has her own style. She’s very busy and needs clothes to match all her needs.
SH: Even if she’s a mom, she still wants to look good, be in the here-and-now and not just in the baby world.
There are more fashion focused cities out there. Why Berlin?
SH: We really feel good here at the moment. The competition is bigger in other cities and it’s more stressful. It’s easy going here but still you can push things forward if you want to.
SB: It’s special to be here at the start of things rather than going somewhere where things already happened.
From the first ideas/inspirations until production…what does the process at Blame look like?
SH: Designing and doubting! Re-designing and doubting again! It is all work in progress.
SB: We always start with the fabric and the color which is vital for our design. After deciding on color and fabric the inspiration gets clearer and the collection grows.
The idea behind Blame?
SB: Transforming vintage into a modern look but not making a one-to-one copy of vintage. We don’t want our clothes to look as if they’ve been bought from a flea market.
SH: We always incorporate humor. Last season we had a very classic shift dress with a collar but we used neon fabric for a cheeky contrast.
Text by Grashina Gabelmann
Blame’s SS/13 collection will be shown at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Berlin on the 5th July 2012.