American Workwear Meets Berlin's Underground Culture For Carhartt WIP x Herrensauna
Berlin's nightlife is a thing of legend, especially to those who actually manage to infiltrate its gatekeeped walls. Providing the city with a party where all walks of life feel comfortable is Herrensauna, and its fashion collection with Carhartt WIP is similarly focused on being comfy.
Speaking to Highsnobiety at the end of last year, Nicolas Endlicher and Cem Dukkha, the duo behind the party-starting collective said their goal is to get away from the "Police-y, gatekeeping nightclub mentality,” that exists in the city.
An all-black uniform of awkward leather gear won't immediately grant you entry like it supposedly does in the city's most exclusive clubs, at Herrensauna, guests will just as likely to enjoy the music wearing a tracksuit. So it is no coincidence that the club night has just released one with the American worker label.
The collaborative graphic collection is based upon the values of Saint Sebastian, an early Christian saint and martyr. "During the first summer of the pandemic, we really felt that the underground scenes were connecting more again, because the big clubs were still kind of paralyzed," Nicolas Endlicher Herrensauna's co-founder explains. "So we came up with this idea of the underground renaissance in Berlin.”
"My favorite theme of the Renaissance was Saint Sebastian, who has become the saint of the queers. He was always relevant when there were pandemics, first during the Black Plague, and then during the AIDS pandemic. So, for us it was an interesting idea to take this figure and explore what it means in a contemporary context."
The duo says that, "the values Saint Sebastian embodies have become ever more present. Liberated from any bodily attributes it is those values we try to highlight in our designs: Resilience. Growth. Spring."
Bringing the history of the saint who became a queer icon into a contemporary context, the collection includes gothic graphics that deconstruct his body along with color combinations that are inspired by 15th-century manuscripts.
These are joined by collaborative branding on a range of t-shirts and a matching tracksuit set. Check out the full collection in the video above, available on the Highsnobiety Shop.
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