Melitta Baumeister (Q3358)
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Melitta Baumeister is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Melitta Baumeister |
Melitta Baumeister is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
“Just do it,” Nike’s famously rousing slogan, can be applied to any number of situations—but not to building a fashion brand. That’s a slow-and-steady proposition, as a mapping of 2023 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund winner Melitta Baumeister’s career demonstrates. In 2014, a year after graduating from Parsons, the designer launched her brand at New York Fashion Week courtesy of V-Files; a decade later, for spring 2025 she made her runway debut in Manhattan. She chose sports as her theme, and one way of reading this show was as a metaphor for the designer’s trajectory.There was no attempt to hide the work that goes into physical performance: The thump, thump of a working heart resounded in the elevators that took guests up to the show space, which was filled with the sound of the breathy panting of an athlete exerting themself.The show got off to a sprinting start, literally, thanks to Scout Bassett, gold medal track and field Paralympian, who modeled the first look. Baumeister explained that it wasn’t The Games that set her creative process rolling, but her interest in movement and acceleration. Up until now, she has presented her work in a lookbook format, with photography that emphasizes the sculptural shapes she’s known for. The missing piece was motion. The models’ walk made the plissé dresses come alive; their bounce was somewhere between that of a balloon and a slinky.(American) football shoulders have long been an inspiration, whether replicated or interpreted (see Claude Montana) in fashion. Baumeister interpreted them as round, arching spans or sharp peaks; both fit right into her taxonomy of shapes. Creating a sense of aerodynamics were dramatic and gravity-defying coiffures, flying braids or triangles of windswept, and set, hair. Supersizing V-necked football jerseys and rendering them in padded fabric created an interesting sense of flatness. Tank-shapes, used for dresses and separates, looked especially sleek. One suspects Baumeister’s partner, a dedicated cyclist, inspired the bike shorts. The designer also zips around on two wheels, though usually in a black dress and cap.Sweats with unusual cuts have long been part of MB collections: this season they were sprayed by hand to create a worn-in look, as if taking a cue from the brand’s popular denims, which are silk-screened after they have been produced.
It was difficult to relate some of the looks, such as the last exit, an attractive take on a biker/punk aesthetic, and a pointed column (look 34) which was difficult to walk in, and related back to the theme. A varsity number sort of justified the silver bell that glimmered down the catwalk. “I do feel like we have a lot of humor in our collections,” Baumeister said in her stoic way. This outing once again demonstrated that her talent is nothing to laugh at.
11 September 2024
A few months ago the fashion establishment “swiped right” on Melitta Baumeister, naming her the winner of the CFDA/VogueFashion Fund. This season found the designer on endless scroll; at least that was the format of the digital activation she presented on her Instagram account, which was a series of spoofs on popular TikTok memes, such as Subway Girl, Get Ready With Me, and SMR. “There’s something about social media, we all get so sucked in, so it is interesting to use that kind of technique for a fashion presentation,” said the designer on a walk-through in her Long Island City studio.The “model/actors” performing these parodies were selected from an IG casting call that yielded about 700 responses. “It’s just interesting to have people that are real and where someone else can relate,” said Baumeister, who is also on a mission to convince people that her designs, despite their exaggerated proportions, are not so extreme. “For so long I was [categorized] as the designer who does sculpture, sculpture, sculpture, but there is so much that I do that is actually for people,” she said. “I want someone to have their moment in the subway; it’s not about the red carpet, I don’t want to do looks for a one-time wear. I like to keep that balance of being special enough to be a special moment, but it is for the everyday.”The hand-painted jeans that looked silk-screened were an example of that perfect balance. Introduced last spring, they were back for fall. Baumeister also applied a brush to her pleated dresses and then heat set them, creating a lovely color gradient between the “spines” of the pleats which took the paint, and the inside of the fold, which were protected from it. The electric blue she used appeared also on a dyed denim set that’s destined to be somebody’s favorite ’fit pic. Another surface treatment was the printing of trompe l’oeil vests on tops and dresses. There’s always been an unexpected element of sportiness to Baumeister’s work. Very early on she showed cleat-like shoes, and this season there was a cyclist-style bodysuit, and A-line windbreaker dresses with puff sleeves.The silhouettes this season were fairly standard for the brand, but seeing them worn by people of different body types and gender identities was exciting. This wasn’t the edgiest Baumeister collection ever, but it made up for that in “realness” and engagement.
13 February 2024
As a CFDA/VogueFashion Fund finalist, Melitta Baumeister has eyes on her, and the spring season presented the opportunity to introduce her work to a broader audience. The designer smartly took advantage with a sort of stock-taking lineup, consisting of many familiar silhouettes.Baumeister is a courageous creator of shapes, some of which are extreme: See Look 1, a snake-inspired dress made of padded tubes, and 15, a phallic-looking number that puzzled together horseshoe hoops with ball endings. (Regular-size silver metal versions of these on T-shirts are a recent addition to the brand repertoire.) Bananas have been part of the brand iconography for years, and one appears in bag form this season. (The fruit also showed up at Puppets and Puppets.) Newsier, and surprisingly cute, was an upside-down bow mini bag and platform shoes to go with it.Iterations of the brand’s tent and upside-down-tulip shapes were on offer for spring, as were her pleated fabrics and volumes, which get their structure from foam. Baumeister believes in the power of fashion to transform your day, your mood, your life, and she attempted to get that message through via a presentation and a video. “You might think Melitta Baumeister is purely a black-and-white brand. Perception is our most unreliable sense because it can be changed so easily. What you see is not always what you get. Can something so voluminous be easy to wear? Seems impossible, yet here it is” are some lines from the script.Baumeister creates clothes that have a big impact, but most have their basis in good old American sportswear; it’s just that she’s added foam to the sleeves of a T-shirt dress or supersized a shirtwaist using the same technique. She’s been translating her volumes into drapey denim (and tracksuits) and was ahead of the JNCO revival moment we’re living through. Last season Baumeister introduced hand-painted jeans that had a touch of the feeling of Warhol’s screen prints. They are stellar and, she says, have been a commercial success. The recent addition of sportier elements (see spring’s orange topper) helps balance the seeming fancifulness of the line.Complementing the brand’s signature pleats is new parachute ruching that is interrupted by bands of sheer filament. Though Norma Kamali was not a reference, it recalled that designer’s popular parachute style. Like Cecilie Bahnsen, Baumeister has introduced jackets that take into account the volumes they need to cover.
Wavy lines are part of the brand vocabulary, and this season they took on an additional form: a headless-snake print created with the help of AI. It worked best applied to mesh layering pieces, creating a tattoo effect. Because Baumeister’s designs have an inherent graphic quality, the overlay of patterns on them is more distracting than enhancing and has the potential to interfere with her goals. “What I really want is for people to understand the garments,” she said on a studio visit. If you can get past the snakes, it’s totally doable.
14 September 2023
Shapes and volumes are the subjects of Melitta Baumeister’s work, and they morph and shift in response to seasonal themes. The fall collection was a sometimes humorous meditation on “extreme nature.” The designer arrived at the theme via her partner, a long distant cyclist who participated in the grueling Tour Divide, which traverses the Rocky Mountains. As the athletes ride along the continental divide the varying types of terrain create “all kinds of natural challenges… and one of them is bears and others animals that you need to watch out for,” said Baumeister. This hazard inspired Baumeister’s fuzzy “teddy” looks, as well as smaller creature comforts in the form of furry footwear and carry bears that convert into tote bags. There were also cycling-style leggings featuring sternum rings (adding a bit of “kink” the designer said), but otherwise the rest of the collection was a more abstract take on a theme that took the brand in some new directions.The most notable addition to Baumeister’s repertoire was her take on technical outerwear. Black nylon separates with exaggerated dimensional pockets came in shapes that ranged from big to bigger (see look 57 for the latter). These added an element of unexpected functionality to a collection that was ironic; nature seen through the lens of a city dweller. “We almost have more ply wood around us than trees in New York or in big cities,” noted the designer. Plywood inspired a print, wood-patterned fabrics (not moiré), and quilted pieces. (These included a heart with the designer’s initials as you might see carved into a tree). Actual plywood was used to create the shape of the third look.Baumeister also continued her love affair with circle shapes, using foam to create ring shapes. The patchworked plissé pieces created a sort of texture within texture and were engineered with great care. The precise shaping and thinness of Baumeister’s “flat” dresses and separates made them cousins, it seemed, of the paper dresses that will soon be exhibited at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in New York.The collection’s piece de resistance was a blow-up windbreaker in silver metallic that resembled heat blankets or aluminum foil. (The designer likes to incorporate everyday objects, “like things that are around that you” into her work.) In contrast to the deliberate artificiality of the first look were some oversized hand knit angora cardigans, as well as hand-painted denim, which achieved an almost X-ray like quality.
These complemented prints made using blank silk-screens. If the knits added a homely sense of hand to the collection, the denim allowed Baumeister to engage with craft. Because of how they are made these pieces will be unique, and so is the designer’s “big picture” take on fashion overall.
7 March 2023
Exploration of form, rather than narrative, is what drives Melitta Baumeister. It also keeps a steady stream of interns knocking on her door in Washington Heights. They always say, “I want to know how you make these shapes,” says the designer with a laugh.There’s not a single answer to that question. The shoulder points of a witchy dress in the spring collection are formed by a wooden harness. What I’m calling the chair dress makes use of an inflatable, rather than foam, which the designer has employed in the past. Soft boning is used for 3D frills, and one way volume is created is by using pleating on the crossgrain. Pleating, says Baumeister, also replicates the “bounciness” and “wobbliness” of knits.Baumeister is a wizard with lines and circles and squiggles, which she applied for spring with various degrees of intensity. There are plenty of options on the tamer end of the spectrum. Among them are a shirtdress in an exaggerated A-line shape, tent dresses with bubbled hems, an especially smart oversize parka, and generously tailored jackets with extra long and extra skinny sleeves worn with shorts-pants, which can be detached at mid thigh.Some of the pieces in Baumeister’s spring collection place her work in line with what Satoshi Kondo and Yusuke Takahashi are doing at Issey Miyake and CFCL respectively, but her world is her own. It’s one of circus mirror exaggeration and exacting techniques. Wallflowers be warned: There is nothing “safe” about this designer’s work. “I like the extreme points of something,” says Baumeister. “Whether it’s extremely round or extremely pointy, I like to see where the edge of something still being wearable is.” As the writer Louis de Bernières once noted: “The human heart likes a little disorder in its geometry.” Baumeister delivers this in spades in her more dramatic pieces, like a black vinyl dress with what look like pillowy, inflated sleeves, or a sleeveless pink dress that resembles an upside-down wedding cake. Some of the shapes, like that of a golden dress with a crinoline-like fullness in the skirt seem to reference historical garments. Baumsister says she’s not looking at the past, however, but pushing the boundaries of what she can do with volume, and she works in the round, making things on a form and trying them on herself, rather than starting from a two-dimensional drawing.The sense ofMa, or the space in between, is strong in Baumeister’s work. “It’s actually never about the body,” she says.
“You don’t need to come to the brand with a certain body and show your body, it’s more like you come as you are. You just need to bring that attitude.” This might seem like a revolutionary approach to fashion at a time when the world is in thrall to Y2K and its show-some-skin aesthetic, but actually it’s similar to how Cristóbal Balenciaga created masterful silhouettes that were at the same time “forgiving” for his clients.Baumeister is all for boldness. “I always get surprised when these types of garments are too much for a woman…for me, that is like the minimum there should be,” she says. Her designs, which take up space, are meant to endow the wearer with strength: “It’s not that easy sometimes to be a woman and to have a voice, so I try to give the wearer some sort of confidence.”
3 October 2022
The last photograph in Melitta Baumeister’s fall lookbook features a model in a dramatic, dimensional sculpted dress with a vacuum cleaner as an accessory. It’s not the first time that cleaning implements have featured in this designer’s work—Dover Street Market recently installed an exhibition of her signature kitchen selfies. “I kind of like this dressing up in your kitchen where you’re supposed to cook, supposed to do this and that, but instead you’re using that space for dress up, which is a little contradictory,” explained Baumeister on a call. This contrariness is at work in everything she does, and there is always something a bit off or provocative in this designer’s work. It’s not something you can put your finger on, but this mysterious undercurrent, combined with the designer’s technical skill, makes her work compelling and relevant. Simply put, Baumeister’s world view leaves room for uncertainties.The squiggly line the designer introduced for spring, as a sort of visual representation off the instability of the times, returns to wend its way through the fall lineup, used to pattern quilted fabrics and trace sinuous and sometimes awkward silhouettes which, as in the Japanese concept of ma, also carve out the negative space around them.Baumeister literally removed a lot of the stuffing, or padding, that often facilitates what she describes as “hyper real” shapes. They haven’t disappeared for fall, but they are arrived at in different ways, through pattern making, of course, but also the careful setting and cut of plissé fabric, for example. The designer, who spent some time throwing pots recently, was pursuing softness this season, hoping to give her pieces “a more organic or maybe more human touch.” The luxurious folds in look 4 indeed resemble that of collapsed clay—if clay had the consistency of a feather.These refinements mark a successful evolution of Baumeister’s work; when she veered off-path the road got a bit bumpy. At the center top of a large circle-shaped dress the designer quilted the Venus of Willendorf (an ancient carving found in Austria that is believed to be associated with fertility) around which lines of quilting radiate, as around a pebble thrown in the ocean. Asked to speak about this look, Baumeister referenced Louise Bourgeois, saying that the statuette was “the first visualization of a woman,” and somehow connected to the designer’s efforts to empower women.
If this look was an outlier, Baumeister’s rare attempt at a print, an abstract floral, recalled one by a fellow DSM designer.More to the point, perhaps, is the scribbly style of that bloom, which sort of brings us back to where we started: the vacuum cleaner, which exists to deal with disorder. The off-kilter aspects of Baumeister’s work seem to acknowledge that life is messy, and her controlled and contorted designs both reflect and counter that. By bringing her fashion into the interior or domestic sphere through props and selfies, the designer challenges traditional views of women, but also reminds us that fashion can help us find the magic and power within ourselves.
3 March 2022
The extremes of fashion—full coverage and near nakedness—are present in the closing looks of Melitta Baumeister’s spring collection, as they were at the 2021 Met gala. It’s easy to imagine Baumeister’s dresses having a place on that red carpet and even easier to imagine them on display in a museum. The carved wooden heels of this season’s shoes look a bit Brancusi; Baumeister’s use of curved cuts to create sculptural shapes never ceases to inspire. And there’s a market for them: She has had a place at DSM Tokyo since last year.But back to those dresses. One is a sort of naked dress—although it’s worn over a beige leotard and covers the head, it’s see-through, made of a sparkling, transparent mesh from which it takes its name, Bling Bling King. That piece is as much about volume as it is glitter; it has a deconstructed 1950s-couture feeling, as the horsehair used to create grandness and volume, which is usually hidden, is visible through the mesh. It creates “a blurry vision of the body,” notes Baumeister. Ditto her last look, a head-covering unconstructed silk chiffon in an electric green that’s worn over a Lucite harness. The effect is a bit classical, a bit Cousin Itt, and is in line with the designer’s exploration of shape.Baumeister is a big fan of foam, and she used it again this season to create the opening lilac look, which at first glance might seem like an homage to Rei Kawakubo’s so-called lumps and bumps collection of spring 1997. Following a fall collection about home, this is a collection about the body, but its starting point was an Instagram filter called the wacky mirror that distorts a body in motion in a more sophisticated way than at a fun fair. That undulation, that uncertainty, is a metaphor for the in-between times we’re living through. “We hope that everything will be fine very soon, but we’re in a state of uncertainty for sure, things are…still in a wobbly space, and I was thinking maybe the best way forward is to focus on yourself and what is on your mind,” says Baumeister. “Basically the collection is about self-healing, mindfulness, and a reflection on the body.”Self-care is introduced into the look book narrative by face masks. These props actually inspired the grin-shaped cutouts that appear in the collection, notably on some great trousers and washed denim.
Baumeister translated the sweatsuit into her own language last season, and for spring it got another revamp with ingenious cuts that allow sleeves to be worn in different ways. Morphing sleeves also appear on shirtdresses.
27 September 2021
Melitta Baumeister is a German designer who lives in New York, usually shows in Paris, and this month opens a permanent space at Dover Street Market in Ginza, Tokyo. This indirect association with Rei Kawakubo might help people unfamiliar with Baumeister’s work to place it within the avant-garde tradition—as will the dramatic first look here. That bulbous, asymmetrical, padded harness-like mass covered in a wood-grain print worn over a black latex stirrup bodysuit with exaggerated platform shoes may be a showpiece, but it’s among the most literal expressions of Baumeister’s topical theme. “Sitting inside, looking outside. That simple, simple thought,” she said. “I like to have these kind of furniture silhouettes, or fabrications with the wood [print] and this idea of the body becoming part of the furniture as well.” And who hasn’t become one with a chair or a sofa during these work from home days?Baumeister described herself as “a designer who is very much about silhouettes,” and she sculpts clothes ingeniously. There are pieces with variously placed armholes that allow the wearer to alter the look of a garment; pieces with built-in structure; and those with inherent slouch, which are Baumeister’s take on the trend of the moment. “I had to learn to do sweatpants,” or rather, she qualified, to learn how to apply her aesthetic to sweatpants. They are shaped with the legs cut so they look like they’ve been sat in.The house, and the universe of Baumeister, where things aren’t quite as they seem, is under construction. Over time, the designer said, she’s learned how to make pieces that deliver drama in doses big and small, as evidenced by this striking, thought-provoking collection. Are the dysmorphic showpieces a reflection of the world as it is today? Or do they challenge us to find new ways of looking at the world?Baumeister’s work is challenging, humorous, often beautiful, and despite a touch or two of kink, it has a purity that comes from focus on design and vision. “I guess I’m just a very honest designer,” she said. “And if I wouldn’t do it like this, then I would just do something else completely.”
10 March 2021
Melitta Baumeister has always put considerable effort into her temporary Paris showroom by staging her collections within an arty, mostly monochromatic installation. There was no way that catching up via Zoom could replace this.Yet the digitally animated short video she previewed during our chat succeeded in transmitting her subdued, subversive vision. Featured in her alternate realm: clothes that swirl and blossom around an avatar model, a rottweiler in loungewear, and a wink to Maurizio Cattelan’s controversial banana artwork. The look book, meanwhile, presents various homebound activities—bread making, ironing, putting up with ennui—all while donning coordinated mesh ensembles, spongy tops, and voluminous straw dresses. If this character had endured lockdown like all of us, she certainly wasn’t spending her days in sweats.Still, this lineup—aptly titled Domestic Surreal—showed Baumeister calibrating conceptual with comfort. For the past few seasons, she had started experimenting with denim, French terry, and jersey alongside some of her stiffer bonded and vinyl shapes. This wasn’t some sort of instant pivot in order to resonate with reality. It was, however, an inspired way to consider dressing up when there might or might not be anywhere to go.From the draped or floor-grazing A-line dresses to the tailored-pajama looks in tonal brocade, Baumeister seemed intent on maintaining a certain formality, even while positioning the clothes as softer and less severe. Anyway, looks can be modified as desired: A bulging soccer ball shoulder collapses when the inner structure is removed; clingy second skin layers become a base for adding more extreme shapes. Baumeister created the extra-exaggerated oxfords and platform sandals with an artisanal shoemaker in the New York area (in fact, much of the collection was produced with local craftspeople and factories that hadn’t shut down). But throw on a pair of Birkenstocks or Converses and you’d still end up looking more avant-garde than athleisure.For our Zoom call, Baumeister opted for one of her pouf-shouldered pieces, but was she actually dressing this way all through lockdown? There were “slouchy” days and “couch looks,” she confessed. Generally, though, she said she felt reassured by sticking to her usual style, and heard likewise from customers who told her that fashion helped them “stay sane.
” And a little comic relief never hurts, which is why she reintroduced her banana bags and created a bucket hat that mimics her hairstyle. “I think people always laugh at bananas for some reason, perhaps they have so many meanings,” she said. Guaranteed conversation pieces for the moments we leave our domestic cocoons.
13 October 2020
Melitta Baumeister had a roundabout way of explaining why these images seemed to be so focused on a young woman doing carpentry. Suffice to say, the link between workshop and workmanship is not arbitrary. Since her earliest collections, Baumeister has experimented with heavy-duty materials more common to construction than to clothes. This season, she staged her temporary Paris showroom with a plinth of stacked foam not unlike what she uses as the spongy padding in some of her garments. Indeed, it wasn’t so long ago that extreme silhouettes and fabrications represented almost the entirety of her collection. You need only glance at the first two looks to see she continues to coax drama out of her shapes.But you will also notice how she confidently shifts from rigidity to draping, all while maintaining a coherent and singular aesthetic. Perhaps that’s why the introduction of a few suit-style jackets and trousers registered as the collection’s big surprise. As it turns out, Baumeister learned tailoring quite early in her fashion trajectory, so the jackets were not only well made but well proportioned to correspond to her various volumes.Quilting proved another point of interest within the offering, but instead of outerwear, Baumeister proposed various A-line dresses and coats that you could wear without feeling unwieldy. Many of her total looks—whether technical taffeta ensembles, a stretchy bodysuit worn with flocked fluid pants, or a tie-dyed print jersey dress—gave off an arty attitude that she could play up even more to attract like-minded clients (who would surely recognize Baumeister’s look book restaging of the well-known Louvre painting featuring Henry IV’s mistress and a pinched nipple).On another art front, Baumeister developed her Dada-esque banana bags right before Maurizio Cattelan’s $120,000 artwork launched a million memes (her Instagram post from late November confirms as much). But if the two versions—a bunch in black leather and single-serving pouches—prove to be nonperishable conversation pieces, there was something equally nifty about the T-shirts pierced with two eyelets toward the sternum through which you can thread your own chain necklace. Asked how she would sum up all these inspirations to someone unfamiliar with her designs, Baumeister initially confessed that this can be a challenge. Later, she replied by email, “It’s the mundane where I would love to see my pieces being worn.
That’s where fashion is most powerful in creating lots of small but sublime moments.” For all her subversive gestures, Baumeister is actually a rather grounded designer.
29 February 2020
Melitta Baumeister continues to eschew any form of presentation or show even as her line gains traction. She now has a permanent corner at Dover Street Market in New York, and empowered mega-talents like Lauryn Hill and Björk have taken interest in her designs. On the one hand, she could generate considerable buzz by staging events; on the other, there is something quite special about the appointments that press and buyers get in their place—the calm ambience and the fact that she will try on her own pieces in lieu of a model.For this collection, Baumeister’s fascination with boxing manifested itself very literally as a glove transformed into a shoulder bag and more conceptually as an exploration of padded shapes and muscled bodies. Take the full-length coatdress in technical leather, its couture-like sculpted shape deliberately off-center. When Baumeister demonstrated how the optional padding creates a completely exaggerated shape, it also seemed as though anyone could throw a jab to her shoulder and she would barely feel it. The other statement piece registered as violently pink; and having never previously used sequins, Baumeister applied them to glaring effect. Anyone not intimidated by Comme des Garçons volumes might appreciate the experimentation here.Baumeister also extended her muscle metaphor to the design exercises she gives herself, and you get the sense the hardest thing for her is to think commercially. But looks that integrated linen (she made sure to point out its raw, rather than refined, quality), as well as the coordinated knitwear and technical mesh ensembles, were proof that she is more than capable of softening her approach. If the vinyl jackets remain her best sellers, those in a stiff satin material were best suited to attracting new customers. Among her expanded accessories range, crystal clusters framed with a Cuban link chain give new meaning to heavyweight; and at buyers’ request, Baumeister says she will add a zipper to turn a glove-like belt into a fanny pack. She may prefer to stay under the radar, but perhaps with these pieces more people may finally glom on to her radical minimalist style.
29 September 2019
Dressed in her own designs, Melitta Baumeister can’t help but stand out. When we randomly crossed paths early last Sunday morning, both in pursuit of pastries, she was wearing the bubble-back, cropped biker jacket that opens her Fall collection, and she projected far more edge than most locals.Fast-forward to our showroom visit, and she followed up by saying that the jacket had proved a conversation starter when she was traveling from New York—never mind its welcome padding during the flight. “I hadn’t tested it in a regular environment, and it prompted smiles and stares,” she explained. “It becomes a moment of recognizing something out of the ordinary.” Driving this point home, several images were propped with a mock subway pole, as though placing the model in the most routine setting of all. In real life, you wonder how fellow riders would perceive her “banana bra,” with its highly suggestive phallic protrusions; if nothing more, it was a new assertion of personal space.Partly because she’s reached her five-year anniversary, Baumeister has pivoted back toward the proportion experimentation that defined her early work—and she’s done so without neglecting the (relatively) wearable imperatives that started to emerge as her brand matured. Take a glance, for instance, at the glossy dress patterned like the wood grain inside a luxury car; to counter its rigid vinyl shape, she integrated a stretch panel down the back. The bulbous hips and squared shoulders of a dress in technical leather came from optional padding (imagine pillowy panniers). While it could just as easily be worn normally, the dress was sending a message of body transformation that, for Baumeister, is inextricably linked to empowerment.Each time she tried on another piece—the top with foamy, ballooned sleeves; the spongy trench with a hidden belt; the shaggy faux goat hair capelet—her petite frame became enclosed in a superhero statement of her own making. On a more human scale, quilted skirts with belts that boasted removable bucket bags, oversize cardigans, high-neck tops with trompe l’oeil shirt collars, and coordinated pleated pieces were wardrobe novelties that stopped short of being weird.As of April, Baumeister will have corners at Dover Street Market in both Los Angeles and New York, and, given the store’s emphasis on Comme des Garçons, she’ll fit right in. In construction and signification, her approach seems comparatively simplified.
Yet her instincts are interesting, and, one imagines, wearing her clothes from time to time would feel interesting, too.
3 March 2019
More often than not, Melitta Baumeister sets up a temporary showroom in various Paris rental apartments, which she personalizes as though her own. She’s not the only designer to do this; she just so happens to find very cool spaces (alas, she’s yet to reveal her scouting secret) and her black-and-white aesthetic is a constant—austere but not unwelcoming. For Spring, she said she pursued an honest message in response to the world’s woes, ultimately asking herself the question, “What would be the brand’s loveliness?” It’s not a word you would immediately associate with Melitta Baumeister the label, yet the person has always given off warmth during our exchanges. She also noted her interest inNightlife, a short film by Cyprien Gaillard, which features trancelike scenes in four cities (extracts can be found online). Loveliness as a motion and emotion, as color expressed through form.High up on the lovely meter, she introduced a draped halter dress and spongy knits in shades of peony-pink and buttercup, while offering an allover denim look in pure red, its cropped jacket rounding outward at the back. Through her previous experience with bonding, she developed a custom sweatshirt jersey, proposing the ultimate, supersoft hoodie, while not abandoning the vinyl that has become a signature (as a white A-line dress, it wouldn’t look out of place in some sort of sci-fi setting). A white leather trench was as luxe as it was lovely, while a black duster coat was lovely for its easily adjustable shape.And so, despite maintaining that she’s still not used to designing for comfort—scan back to earlier collections to see how she instinctively gravitates towards unwieldy volumes and industrial materials—she’s actually rather good at it. “It’s still my language,” she rightly observed. Ten seasons on, this begs the question of whether Baumeister should be considering a more official presentation. The answer is yes. It’s no surprise that Dover Street Market and 10 Corso Como carry the New York–based designer, but the clothes lose their dimension and impact in photos. And if what she does with a small Paris apartment is any indication, she would make quite the impression by inviting more people to discover her world.
29 September 2018
Spotted at Melitta Baumeister’s showroom: the cleverest sweater of the season—a loosely knit turtleneck that can be pulled up over the face and worn balaclava-style thanks to eye openings. Call it a head sweater or, better yet, a turtle mask (okay, maybe neither). So obvious is the design, you’d think it must already exist, yet an online search using myriad keywords pulled up nothing. Even if something similar does emerge, buyers have already gone bonkers for Baumeister’s version.Those who have followed the New York–based German designer can confirm that her clothes have been interesting and unsettling since day one. But in favoring materials and volumes so unwieldy that they border on masochistic, she has invariably handicapped herself from growing her brand. That could change with this collection—and she admits as much. “It’s more understandable; it’s an archetype you recognize,” Baumeister said as she showed off a cropped vinyl Perfecto with a widened back and a rounded bomber in a poodle-esque fabric. True to her aesthetic, both framed the body distinctively, only now with less severity. Dresses featured crushed pleating or a flounce at the shoulders as softer details, and a simple gray sweatshirt style in Japanese terry was a little shapeless but very serviceable. Other pieces, including quilted balloon-sleeve tops and tunics, could easily attract women who might have dismissed Baumeister’s clothes in the past. With so much of the collection toned down, the few looks in glaring red seemed to contain whatever emotion she had suppressed elsewhere—which is to say, they needed to be there.You’re now probably wondering about the Doberman. “He played into the archetype of a dog,” said Baumeister. What she wasn’t expecting was a total absence of aggression. “In the end, he was so needy; he had a hard time not loving [the model].” Kind of like the sweater mask: intimidating in appearance, warm on the inside.
5 March 2018
One report from this year’s Venice Biennale described Anne Imhof’s installation at the German Pavilion as like “a catwalk show from hell.” Clearly, that reviewer had never been to Fashion Week, but anyway, Biennale-goers were queuing up to get a look at Imhof’s staging of sullen, black-clad teens variously singing, dancing, or retreating into glass boxes to check their phones and then, all of a sudden, joining together in a stately procession. Melitta Baumeister got a chance to visit the pavilion, and she too was struck by Imhof’s inquiry into the contemporary tension between individuality and collectivity. For her new collection, Baumeister pursued her own questions on that theme.At an appointment today, Baumeister said she wanted her clothes to operate as “blank canvases.” There’s something semi-radical in that idea: What if fashion operated not as a means of self-expression, but as a box that could contain an infinitude of individualities expressing themselves in other ways? There was a studious anonymity to most of Baumeister’s garments. A minimalist from the start, she’s backed off from the sculptural assertion of her early collections; the silhouettes here were not so much monumental as open, with subtleties of volume and construction serving to define the shapes. Streetwise looks like an oversize hoodie or a latex poncho added to the sense that Baumeister was trying to create a youth uniform virtually anyone could wear. A march composed of women clad in her black or white pleat-detailed dresses or tunics and wide-leg pants would make for a formidably cool protest, indeed. There’s power in subsuming the self to a larger message.In any case, the self reemerges. In Baumeister’s collection, it happened in gestures—a pouf sleeve, some delicate lace, the slap of black-and-white stripe—and then it happened in Technicolor, with looks in fire engine red and blush pink. One of the nice things about this outing was that Baumeister wasn’t arguing that individuality-versus-collectivity is a zero-sum game. Like Imhof’s installation at the German Pavilion, it articulated a more complicated idea: Sometimes you can be all for one, and sometimes you can be one for all.
13 October 2017
Melitta Baumeister has gone soft. But in this context, the shift is a good thing. Anyone who has followed the New York–based designer’s collections from her early days can confirm how she used foreign and unforgiving materials—typically not even fabrics—to achieve her dramatic, experimental volumes. Last season, she began upping the accessibility to the point that now her full-on commitment to comfort could be read as a radical statement in its own right. She explained how she’d been reflecting on Adam Curtis’s recent documentary,HyperNormalisation, which elucidated notions of real world versus fake world. Operating under this logic, she concluded that it’s impossible to challenge the realness of a pair of crisp jeans or a white T-shirt and it’s important for designers to be “in the service” of their customer as long as they stick to their beliefs. And for Baumeister, normal will still never equal normcore.Her standout black dress projected a cool silhouette thanks to its football shoulders and drawstring waist. The material: polar fleece. A simple snap-front shirt wasn’t down-filled or quilted; it was “cushioned,” which produced a more discreet padding effect than usual. She applied the same technique to scarves, adding a zip pocket near the tip so small items could be stashed inside (smart, as long as people don’t leave the piece in a cab). That she achieved her now-signature extreme roundness in an amply stuffed, water-repellent cotton bomber showed that she can adapt and problem-solve without compromising her core aesthetic. Even when she returned to her favorite bonding technique, she did so with a dress that wouldn’t look unusual in the boardroom. As for the frock in teddy-bear fur or the foamy straight-line coat, they were relatively less real but also dream-come-true cozy.The upshot of an offering that is both wearable and aligned with a Vetements aspect of awkward cool is its commercial viability, and go figure, this plays right into the consumerist system that filmmaker Curtis calls out. But rather than surrendering, Baumeister gives the impression she is aiming to hack the system from within.
2 March 2017
After three years of constructing innovative garment shapes from industrial materials,Melitta Baumeisterhas finally made a collection that no longer feels so intimidating. This season marks a turning point for the New York–based designer, whose steadfast approach to stiff volumes has quite likely restricted her from achieving a level of recognition that reflects both her technical skill and her strong point of view. Baumeister stopped short of crediting her retail-friendlier offering to her experience as a short-listed nominee for this year’s LVMH Prize, although she allowed that the feedback was duly noted. Her motivation came from her own Tumblr page upon realizing she could materialize thebold titleand the photos (taken by longtime collaborator Paul Jung) into a meta-print. Arriving at a “signature coat” based on her digital presence showed savvy control of her identity.Creating pieces that no longer put up a wall between wearer and the world was the key to her evolution, though. As she singled out all the newness, from a puff-sleeved sheath that she described as “very lady” to her interpretation of a gray sweatsuit (boxy hoodie, rounded front-pleated pants), her designs seemed simultaneously more accessible and mature. She attained her familiar volumes—oversize T-shirt dresses, A-line trousers, deep double-V smocks—using comparatively lighter materials such as starchy taffeta, bouncy jersey, and poplin, so that her visual vocabulary remained unaltered. A raw cotton jean jacket with flattened sleeves that coaxed the arms toward the chest offered further proof that she hadn’t betrayed herself, even while she flirted with surface detail for a slinky white double-sided sequined dress (the pattern turns black when the dress is reversed). As for the ubiquitous grayscale tattoos, she photocopied and reworked an old flower image—and, yes, they’re temporary. But Baumeister plans to produce them like an accessory as “a way of using print to dissolve the boundary between the garment and the body.” Previously she had avoided all branding; now she’s branding herself directly onto you.
29 September 2016
Melitta Baumeisterpersonalized her temporary showroom not with flowers but rather a puddle of toxic goo, seemingly oozing from a vent. The glowing silicone matched the only color deployed in her collection; it also represented the apocryphal story that Vincent van Gogh would eat yellow paint to boost his spirits. The takeaway: People will take the chance of falling in love because the risk is worth the potential reward.Baumeister, who is among thesemifinalists for the LVMH Prize, makes risky clothes. The shapes are abnormal or extra large, the “fabric” is almost always adapted from industrial materials, and the overall impression could best be described as conceptual fetish. Nonetheless, Dover Street Market remains among her most receptive retailers, and, as she tells it, editorial requests exceed supply. With this collection, she introduced a new heat-bonding treatment that makes surfaces look vacuum-sealed, an extra-long padded harness created as a layering piece, plus a curly fabric dubbed the “poodle.” She described an asymmetrical pleated skirt as “simple,” despite its high-gloss vinyl. Clearly, it’s all relative.The New York–based designer’s mastery of molding is the reason why a milky vinyl coat looks more wearable than a shower curtain, or why a velvet A-line dress in the aforementioned neon hue would make for an awesome image at a party or on the street. As for concerns over how to wear the pieces, Baumeister insists she integrates styling into each garment so that there’s no fussing once it’s on the body. Suddenly, this reviewer felt tempted to see for herself by trying on the foamy, full-length coat. It was stiff and slightly silly, but mostly badass. Conclusion: a far cooler option than yellow paint.
5 March 2016
New York–basedMelitta Baumeisterconsidered scrawling legible writing—catchphrases, even—across her glossy vinyl bonded garments before settling on black spray-paint tagging and white chalk paint. “I like the illegal aspect—that something beautiful can be defaced and appear destroyed,” she said from a rental apartment in the east stretch of Paris. Surface patterning, no matter how unruly, marks new territory for the young designer, who has become best known for using slick, stiff, and spongy materials that aren’t traditionally wearable. On that count, she’s progressed, too: For Spring, Baumeister used second-skin viscose Lycra to offset her exaggerated volumes. But lest this sound like she’s conceding to retail imperatives, the details were as fetishist as ever—the bodysuits’ zippers ran from nape of neck all the way around to the front of the crotch. And she figured out how to affix nipple ring–type hardware to a top (and elsewhere, to coat closures) so that people can experience the shock value sans pain or permanence. Simply by keeping strict about her silhouettes (hey, it’s all relative), Baumeister is showing maturity. But for all the checks, there remain a few imbalances. The back of a padded apron dress consisted only of a harness. Add a pair of pants or skirt and the front becomes maternity wear.In a perfect world, Baumeister would prefer her looks be worn in full, an admission that’s equal parts understandable and unrealistic. In February, one or two of them will be featured in “Beauty—Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial.” Her work will fit right into an exhibition setting. But it’s clear that fitting in has never been her goal.
3 October 2015
Lay a hand on Melitta Baumeister's oversize, exceedingly dense velvet coat or Tyvek pants and it would seem that she takes no heed of retail imperatives. But that would be a rather myopic view of a unique collection. The German-born, New York-based designer cleverly approached her Fall outing, pushing material norms to produce oddly appealing garments. Whereas bonding velvet to foam brought about such deep opacity that the spongy pieces appeared to be sucking up all available light, Tyvek's crinkly texture bore a resemblance to rice paper (a similar techy toile was used for space suits). Between these two extremes, Baumeister created streamlined gilets and skirts in nylon mesh and vinyl that, comparatively speaking, can be worn without feeling like you're part of a fashion experiment.Baumeister pointed out that she continues to "develop a vocabulary for the brand" and this dictionary of statement pieces will become the guide from which she can move into more wearable territory. Some might advise her against such conceptual positionings; but then few other young designers are as daring with volume (three lean arms could reasonably fit inside one sleeve). If Baumeister's visual language remains challenging, there's still value in the fact that she has something to say.
31 March 2015
After getting her master's in fashion design from Parsons last year, Melitta Baumeister conceived a capsule collection that was immediately picked up by Dover Street Market. And worn by Rihanna. This season marked her follow-up, and the pressure of maintaining the momentum produced an offering that excelled in form, even if it fell somewhat short in function. Baumeister, who is German but remains New York-based, homed in on a tight selection of hybrid materials to express her directional vision—cotton bonded with jersey lent surprisingly rigid form to wide trapeze-shaped pants, and spongy rings encircled the waist and armholes of a cropped top. Baumeister's generous shapes often seemed as if they were suspended in space. The 28-year-old is at her strongest when she balances the volume: A black bib of fabric across the bust paired with a cinched, sculpted skirt evoked an avant-garde spin on John Singer Sargent'sMadame X.Baumeister is not above embellishment, although her science lab approach to it involves a chemical bath and spacer fabric, coaxing translucent saltlike flakes to harden and cling to collars, pocket flaps, and a decorative belt. While the process requires a lot of R&D, the impact is oddly ethereal. But the clothes did come with a caveat. A band positioned at calf height around a sack dress restricted stride, and the showpiece skirt that had been molded around an inner belt to gape from the body would not be conducive to sitting down. One is loath to clip Baumeister's wings with criticisms about comfort when she offers such a distinct point of view, but a few concessions of form to function will assure that the buzz remains well earned.
3 October 2014