One of the upcycled primary-bright shell tracksuits turned into graphic dresses.
Photo: Sharna Osborne/ Courtesy of Grand Export
That was evident during Paris Fashion Week, as they unveiled the complete collection, dubbed Trophies. There were chunky red wool zip-neck sweaters that can be worn upside down (turning them that way offers a far more fitted waistline), short black leather dresses with silky bras peeking out, and repurposed 1970s-era brown shearling coats transformed into curvaceous jackets which, like the knitwear, have a cropped, whittled waist. The venue this time round was an equally airy, heavenly, pale-toned, 19th century apartment in Paris’s 9eme arrondissement, a bread roll’s throw away from the original Rose Bakery.
There are two things to know about Grand Export. One, they clearly have exquisite taste in apartments, no doubt informed by how they see beauty in the past. And two, their label, while destined for global relevance, still lives and breathes Berlin, a city whose fashion has become rightly renowned for its experimentalism, environmentalism, and laudable disinclination to do things just because that’s how the industry has always done them in the past. Contrary to popular belief, there is no dark, doomy, Goth-y Berlin ‘look’; instead it’s where aesthetic diversity is united by mindset and sense of purpose. In Munzing and Berbatovci’s case, their city is a springboard to say something about fashion that they want to resonate far beyond its borders.
