Bernhard Willhelm (Q3879)
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Bernhard Willhelm is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Bernhard Willhelm |
Bernhard Willhelm is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
2000
creative director
Bernhard Willhelm inhabits in his own time zone. This will not come as a surprise to any of the fans who appreciate his alternate-universe views. Let’s be frank: Compared with the rest of Paris Fashion Week, Willhelm’s showroom might as well be on another planet.This collection, in the designer’s own words, is a “symbolic view on consumerism and the relationship between consumers, authors of consumer innovations, and the present and future states of humanity and the world.”That’s a big mission. Let’s just say that Steve Jobs plays a role in it (“a collection has to look very good on an iPhone”). Willhelm is reaching out to the highly educated consumer, top of that list being the Japanese. America comes in on the opposite end of the spectrum, because, like so many these days, Willhelm is feeling both fascinated and conflicted. A lot of his clients come from the Silicon Valley new economy, where the idea of an office hasn’t existed sinceSex and the City, as the designer observes. You get where he’s going. His base dresses for comfort. Some of them have given up on the city entirely and have headed back to nature, which is where unisex dressing might come in particularly handy.So, the designer just sticks to some of his favorite things, like basketball. Willhelm has just returned to Paris from a couple of months in Venice Beach, California. The Veniceball basketball team stars in the lookbook, where the handsome French player Nick Ansom gets a special callout. So does the Brazilian-Austrian artist Christian Rosa, another Los Angeles transplant, who lent his studio for this shoot. That the wall is IKEA blue is hardly incidental.This is when Timothy Leary’sThe Psychedelic Experiencecomes in. A scan through the collection notes delivers this: “Design nowadays merely functions as a composition element, it’s minimal and reduced to the MAX. Sportwear is in a big moment of transition, it’s . . . worn by both sexes. Worn out, bleached, overdyed and dip-dyed in blood red. Like stonewashed Chanel. Trippy in Pink.” Never mind the pink; the khakis are better.Willhelm situates his particular time zone somewhere between Chicago and Antwerp. There, in addition to Steve Jobs on a sweatshirt, one finds camouflage, kimono-style knitwear, a bizarre decapitated head on a marble plate, fil coupe appliqué spelling outConsumer, aDon’t Mess With TexasT-shirt, pretty cool leaping panther embroideries, and a quartet of really cute kittens.
The sock shoes from Camper will probably go cult, too.“In the best case, we wear what we design without being too precious about it,” the designer opines, citing another German designer who spent a lifetime working in Paris. Let’s not go overboard here. Oh, but wait: The Willhelm customer already is.
5 March 2019
Let’s start with the red herring (one of Bernhard Willhelm’s specialties): The MAGA T-shirt scrawled over with Amsterdam.Ask the designer what Amsterdam did to deserve that, and you get a freestyle spiel that involves Japan, Fukushima, Pearl Harbor, Calvinism (read: minimalism), Zen, tourism, and the importance of investing in wind energy (windmills make an appearance, too).Also, Willhelm spent part of the summer in Holland. That’s where he got his hands on artist Daniel Rozenberg, whose crocodile-eating-man-eating-crocodile motif etches out the symbol of infinity. “The crocodile is interesting because he swims with his eyes just above the water; it’s a half-half situation,” the designer mused. “Everyone has to find his inner crocodile.”Infinity returned again in a concentric circle print on a black jacket; it was also spelled out on a tailored suit in red Japanese tie-dye that tapered into white (an oblique reference to the corporate style of dress in America), as well as track shorts. It cropped up as planetary references and also embroideries by Stefan Meier. Traditional Japanese pieces, from kimonos to fundoshi (the undergarment worn by sumo wrestlers)—Willhelm calls it “the infinity thong”—pay tribute to one of the designer’s most loyal markets. (That said, IRL, those kimonos are hottest with American and European clients.)Willhelm considers his work a message in a bottle. “This generation is dealing with sexuality that’s purely virtual, a culture of narcissism and diminishing expectations,” he noted as he showed accessories such as a Bambi bag, a baseball cap emblazoned withEx-Porn Star, and colorful “crocodile” totes.“Crocodiles go along, looking at things, and maybe if they like it, they snatch it,” he said. “Maybe the crocodile is me.”
3 October 2018
Bernhard Willhelm is clocking a milestone: His label turns 20 this year, which puts him in a very elite group of independent niche designers. That’s no mean feat. He’s also recently decamped from Los Angeles back to Europe, and, last fall, he set up a temporary studio in Rosazza, a remote village in the Piedmont region of Italy, the better to be near the wool mills he wanted to work with. It’s also a spiritual place, located at the confluence of two rivers not far from the Sanctuary of Oropa, whose black Madonna draws 800,000 pilgrims a year.During Willhelm’s mountain retreat,Salvator Mundisold at auction for just north of $450 million and went to a new home at the Jean Nouvel–designed satellite of the Louvre in Abu Dhabi. That got the designer thinking (once again) about globalization, capitalism, religion, the commodification of art, and branding in general.“TheMona Lisahas been merchandised for years. Fashion is about selling quantities; it is what you project on it,” the designer offered during a showroom visit. Cue rough-outs of theMona Lisain a dozen or so patches, theSalvator Mundiin jacquard and on triangle designs (mixed with the words “capital” or “clap”), and some outsize pills—antibiotics, presumably—to go with them. Even the late Liliane Bettencourt and a riff on a famous soda logo make an appearance. The Label Queen and Beverly Hills totes spoke for themselves. The strategically placed ears of corn, a little less so. The designer said something about cooking a lot of polenta in the mountains. It’s conceivable that sometimes an ear of corn might be just an ear of corn. But Willhelm being Willhelm, that’s altogether unlikely.
6 March 2018
By his own reckoning, Bernhard Willhelm lives “a rather abstract life.” He’s not known for staying put, for example. Only recently, he decamped from Los Angeles to Piedmont, Italy, a region traditionally known for wool textiles. “I’m trying to explore new ways of existing as a designer,” he mused. He’s been renovating his Paris showroom and dabbling in a few other projects, too, including one with Juergen Teller. Today his business is leaner by half, but he said it’s doing better than ever: “There are no rules in fashion, but hopefully you get wise.”One of fashion’s lone German indie designers, Willhelm has a very particular aesthetic. But he has also proved he’s a survivor. Next year will mark his brand’s 20th anniversary. That merits celebration, but “it won’t involve waterfalls,” he said slyly. He’d rather prove that he still has design chops. And anyway, he hasn’t held on to any archives. His biggest collectors are museums, notably the Philadelphia Museum of Art.For Spring, the designer continued to experiment with the urban-leaning Tropical collection, led by Anubis, the Egyptian god of the afterlife. An “oceaning feeling” took shape in “toxic sunset” colors (on T-shirts), and aquatic hues were interspersed with sharks, fins, and other motifs from the deep. Willhelm again collaborated with artist Stefan Maier, whose dotted print formed a stingray, and with Carsten Flock, whose typography included “gender balancing” flowers and several politically charged patches. But there was a spiritual element to the pieces, too—painted “black hole” sections were for absorbing negative vibes. Elsewhere, Willhelm revisited his kimono obsession; this time in bleached wide-wale corduroy turned horizontally with an oceanic cross and draping in back. Draped dresses and “hula” skirts could be worn in a couple different ways.Loyalists will likely snap up the asymmetrical sweatshirts and sweatshirt dresses with spray-painted accents and fringe. A white silk dress with blue tie-dye and a ruffled neck would be at home in California or Ibiza. “We’ve done universal clothes from the outset,” said Willhelm. “Gender was never a part of it.” Tellingly, the designer’s uniforms are worn by no small number of art-world types.Willhelm has closed out his American chapter, but that’s not enough to stop him from taking on politics: A bag proclaimedDump Trumpwith a “Trumptweetie” bird logo. There were Pope hats proclaiming100 pools, 150 jeeps, 200 rooms.
One California souvenir, a beach bag with a Schwarzenegger-ish likeness inspired by the scene on Venice Beach before Google moved in, will be a collector’s item the minute it hits shelves.
3 October 2017
Bernhard Willhelm’s style can be hard to describe on paper, but the people who get it come back for more season after season.This season, the designer brought messages to his signature kimonos and T-shirts that included owls (wisdom, intelligence); wizards; leaping panthers; “sexy men”; and ominous phrases likeThis is all very dangerous, which is the title of this collection, as well.There’s also a whimsical fox-like creature named Nubis running throughout, keeping company, for example, with a naive rendering of a monk on a long smock with a drawstring neckline. Some hoods sport fox ears. New fabric treatments included spray-paint finishes on T-shirts and coats. A light blue coat with a honeycomb-like weave, done in overdyed, sand-washed organic cotton, and a corduroy-ish velvet dress speak to the designer’s interest in exploring treatments. Boxy sweaters sported graphic Peruvian motifs.In the early hours of the morning back in Los Angeles, where he’s been living for the past three years, Willhelm spoke of his affection for martial arts, Zen Buddhism, and the interconnectedness of things. That his clothes are produced in Japan has something to do with that line of thought. So does his life in L.A., where the designer feels he can take more time.“The spiritual element of the collection is speaking about wisdom and seeing in the night (the owl), and the panther is about breakthrough, which is a popular Chinese symbol,” he pointed out. “I didn’t want to be new-new; I wanted to sort of create a Zen uniform. I’m very interested in creating with constants. It’s a little bit like going back to school. What I need now is a calming feeling.” God knows he’s not alone in that.
6 March 2017
Bernhard Willhelm’sSpring concept found its roots on a trip to Crete and its flowering on another trip to Malibu. “Write all about the colors—the aura. Or is it the spectrum?” said the designer. What he was getting at was the comparatively direct lineup, with “very little print” and a focus on dyeing and de-coloring to create a sun-bleached, lived-in patina. Basically, Bernhard went to the beach. It suited him; Spring is one of his strongest collections in recent memory.Circling back to the palette for a moment: One can’t help but grin when reading that Willhelm dubbed a faded neon pink “Barbra Streisand peach.” Babs’s fuchsia was applied to a cut-out, snood-like knit dress; we could see it working, actually, as a kind of off-kilter but easy cover-up. Japanese cotton kimonos boasted wave motifs and dip-dyed sleeves, while in other parts, that same cotton was adhered to knitwear, creating, say, funkily finished cuffs or necklines. A hooded poncho had the back all but removed; hoodies of micro-terry featured intarsia block motifs. Both made for oddly convincing post-swimwear—especially in Malibu, where the Pacific is chilly.The most newsworthy element of Willhelm’s collection, though, was the introduction of slimmer-fitting, streamlined dresses in both cotton (gray) and knit (on-trend yellow). His business partner, Jutta Kraus, said they were “something new for us.” Something new, indeed, and perfect for the girl who admires Willhelm’s daring but isn’tquiteas eccentric in her own tastes.
29 September 2016
Due to a scheduling error,Bernhard Willhelmwas absent from his review appointment today. No biggie; these things happen. For the sake of expediency, email questions were submitted on-site, which Willhelm answered promptly and, we suspect, with a bit more style than he’d have given up IRL. Here is how he described the inspiration for his ambisexual Fall 2016 collection, which he’s called “Magic Potato”: “It came from a visit to the Koyasan Temple in Japan. The monks opened a shrine with a Buddha, and the decoration was a potato. Also my parents survived on potatoes after WWII. Plants are important for everyone. Deal with it.”Though his designs land about as far left-of-center as possible, the humbleness of his chosen sustenance brought the clothes down to earth a bit—there was a crunchy, stoner-y whiff to dip-dyed corduroy shorts, thread-work done in Kolkata (India), a jumpsuit dyed ochre and clay before being embroidered with tanagers and screened with Cupids, and an outsize scarf printed with a nude woman working on an old car by the artist Rade Petrasevic. Pretty much everything in “Magic Potato” is outré and odd—par for the course with Willhelm—but with, somehow, a somewhat accessible portability or, at least, familiarity. Unlike designers elsewhere who look to grandness and exoticism in amplifying their collections, Willhelm ended up needing the bland to amplify his, so wild is his whimsy.Elsewhere, silhouettes bowed to traditional Japanese kimono or “wizard cloak” shapes (big sleeves, big forms). Those aforementioned tanagers were sewn on throughout; there was also a cockatoo motif, which appeared as an intarsia treatment on a neat piece of bubbled-sleeve knitwear. And Willhelm’s collaboration with Mykita, the Berlin-based eyewear firm, is still thriving. “Somehow, we manage to keep this Los Angeles–Paris–based company over water,” the designer concluded in his message. “A little bit like Jesus without the shoes.” That’s about as simple as he’s going to get.
5 March 2016
Bernhard Willhelm’s latest collection was totally bananas. Literally: Bananas were Willhelm’s inspiration this season, and his clothing’s key motif. There were embroidered banana designs elaborated with loops of fringe, a print of a man eating a banana, three-dimensional banana appliqués, and more. The bananas were ludicrous—not to mention suggestive—which was precisely Willhelm’s point. The designer was “celebrating randomness” in this ostentatiously cheerful outing, which featured lots of sliced and distressed square-cut clothes, and zero instances of the color black.Willhelm was being playful, but his is serious play. To engage with his clothes means engaging with the idea that people could dress in a way far removed from what we see on the street today. The naiveté of his methods—the knotting and slashing and seemingly improvisational draping—as well as his touches of applied damage, like dip-dye or shredded hems, all together suggested a uniform worked out spontaneously by a lost tribe of club kids who had decided to make a society of their own, from scratch. In said society, gender is a nonissue—you wear what you like—and it just so happens that one of the members of this new utopia is a master maker of intarsia knits, with access to hand-embroiderers in India and placement printers in Japan. Which is a roundabout way of noting that Willhelm’s clothes maylookbananas, but the designer himself is not. There’s both method and sophistication to his madness.
5 October 2015
Bernhard Willhelm and Björk go way back. She bought stuff from his graduate collection in 1998. He designed the extraordinary thing she's wearing on the sleeve ofVolta. And their reputations have both just been sanctioned by major museum exhibitions, Björk's at MoMA in New York, Willhelm's at MOCA in L.A. If there's an irony there, the designer would be perfectly happy. "Iconic and ironic" was his own summation of his work during a walk round his latest collection.But what the MOCA show confirms is that "collection" may be toofashion-ya word for Willhelm, especially now that he's a museum star. He's turned his back on the conventions of the industry (an industry he feels turned its back on him anyway), relocated to L.A., repositioned himself. "Freedom to experiment, to explore fashion, sexuality, art, film, video,tableaux vivants…" That's what he's after now. Maybe "vehicle" is a better word than "collection." Still, Willhelm continues to design and produce clothes (everything is made in Japan), and there was enough here to please the fan club that looks to him for a little raw-edged provocation.Willhelm is a Dionysian designer. There is no gender in his clothes, just the pleasure principle that underpinned outfits that looked rave-ready, like the cotton overalls with big zippers. The zip pulls were baby pacifiers recast in aluminum (Willhelm's comment on instant oral gratification). The graphics were, in this case, well and truly just that: faces of climaxing porn stars, one dévoré-ed print of women, the other of men. Willhelm called them his "gay Madonnas in ecstasy." Other visuals looked like messy, spontaneous explosions of paint. They reflected Willhelm's affection for the late '70s German art movement called Junge Wilde ("wild youth"), and they had a nu-tribal feel when they were reproduced on huge wraps. The notion of shameless performance appeals to him. That's what porn shares with Junge Wilde. And it's why Willhelm shot his lookbook two ways: arty, on the dolls from his MOCA show; horny, on Cutler X, an icon of the adult film industry.Art world leanings aside, it's Willhelm's skewed humor that has always been his most memorable calling card. He said this collection began with shampoo—Australian entrepreneur Kevin Murphy's Kakadu Moisture Delivery System, to be precise—which rescued the designer's hair from the 30 percent peroxide solution he'd been dousing it in. The brand's labeling was faithfully duplicated on T-shirts and sweats.
From Kakadu to cockatoo: Willhelm is impressed that in L.A. you can rent any living creature your heart desires, and the cockatoo, with its natural mohawk, seduced the punk in him. So he borrowed the cover art of Supertramp's albumBrother Where You Bound, with its five evolutionary stages of man, and added a cockatoo on the end, afterHomo sapiens, as an "attitude adjuster," the equivalent of the half-smile with which he punctuates everything he says, betraying an ultimate seriousness of purpose. "Humanity needs a spank from designers," said Willhelm. He embroidered endangered frogs and bats on his cotton overalls. Evolution or extinction: the way forward, the way back.
24 March 2015
Bernhard Willhelm and Björk go way back. She bought stuff from his graduate collection in 1998. He designed the extraordinary thing she's wearing on the sleeve ofVolta. And their reputations have both just been sanctioned by major museum exhibitions, Björk's at MoMA in New York, Willhelm's at MOCA in L.A. If there's an irony there, the designer would be perfectly happy. "Iconic and ironic" was his own summation of his work during a walk round his latest collection.But what the MOCA show confirms is that "collection" may be toofashion-ya word for Willhelm, especially now that he's a museum star. He's turned his back on the conventions of the industry (an industry he feels turned its back on him anyway), relocated to L.A., repositioned himself. "Freedom to experiment, to explore fashion, sexuality, art, film, video,tableaux vivants…" That's what he's after now. Maybe "vehicle" is a better word than "collection." Still, Willhelm continues to design and produce clothes (everything is made in Japan), and there was enough here to please the fan club that looks to him for a little raw-edged provocation.Willhelm is a Dionysian designer. There is no gender in his clothes, just the pleasure principle that underpinned outfits that looked rave-ready, like the cotton overalls with big zippers. The zip pulls were baby pacifiers recast in aluminum (Willhelm's comment on instant oral gratification). The graphics were, in this case, well and truly just that: faces of climaxing porn stars, one dévoré-ed print of women, the other of men. Willhelm called them his "gay Madonnas in ecstasy." Other visuals looked like messy, spontaneous explosions of paint. They reflected Willhelm's affection for the late '70s German art movement called Junge Wilde ("wild youth"), and they had a nu-tribal feel when they were reproduced on huge wraps. The notion of shameless performance appeals to him. That's what porn shares with Junge Wilde. And it's why Willhelm shot his lookbook two ways: arty, on the dolls from his MOCA show; horny, on Cutler X, an icon of the adult film industry.Art world leanings aside, it's Willhelm's skewed humor that has always been his most memorable calling card. He said this collection began with shampoo—Australian entrepreneur Kevin Murphy's Kakadu Moisture Delivery System, to be precise—which rescued the designer's hair from the 30 percent peroxide solution he'd been dousing it in. The brand's labeling was faithfully duplicated on T-shirts and sweats.
From Kakadu to cockatoo: Willhelm is impressed that in L.A. you can rent any living creature your heart desires, and the cockatoo, with its natural mohawk, seduced the punk in him. So he borrowed the cover art of Supertramp's albumBrother Where You Bound, with its five evolutionary stages of man, and added a cockatoo on the end, afterHomo sapiens, as an "attitude adjuster," the equivalent of the half-smile with which he punctuates everything he says, betraying an ultimate seriousness of purpose. "Humanity needs a spank from designers," said Willhelm. He embroidered endangered frogs and bats on his cotton overalls. Evolution or extinction: the way forward, the way back.
24 March 2015
When Bernhard Willhelm said he'd cast his black models on a Saturday afternoon in a Paris branch of Foot Locker, it was hard to tell if he was kidding (it's often hard to tell if he's kidding). But the warmth of his feeling for African people and culture was obvious in his latest show. More specifically, there was a heavy Nigerian vibe to the clothes. The essential silhouette of the collection was a voluminous top that seemed inspired by the traditional Nigerianagbadaand was paired with equally full trousers. These were accented with a print of giant gold links, which also appeared on some of the athleticwear that has won the designer a cult following (much in evidence in the audience). Knits and pants featured prints based on old Aztec motifs—created, according to Willhelm, by artists under the influence of mescaline, resulting in a pixilated quality that looked almost computerized. (Again, if it was a tall tale, it was a good one.)In a season that has been distinguished by its cautious dressiness, Willhelm's clothes at least stood out for their unabashed physicality, which appeared cheerfully crass in a metallic gold blouson and full-on fetishistic in side-laced jeans in washed-out denim or leather.
29 January 2005
As a recording of the day's news from a German TV station played in the background, Bernhard Willhelm's show gave viewers a strange sensation something akin to watching a child psychology session in progress. Willhelm's subjects have reached the brink of adolescence, don't know whether to retreat into the safety of childhood or confront the scary outside world, and look like they might have made their clothes in an art-therapy group.The healing began with girls walking out in dresses and skirts made from what looked like dinosaur-appliqued nursery curtains or bedspreads, their faces daubed with face-paint. For the next stage of treatment, the kids had been encouraged to do all sorts of things with sweatshirts and shell suits—like embroidering them with AC/DC slogans, trees, angels and dog-skeletons, and somehow throwing in their mothers' Hermès scarf print symbols. (They had also decided to sport their pencils, paintbrushes and rulers around their necks as jewelry.) At mealtime, they were out to lunch in a Ronald McDonald-meets-the-Simpsons clownish world of brash polka dots and harlequin patterns.It's easy to laugh, but Bernhard Willhelm touches a nerve. He's a designer acutely sensitized to the weirdness and stress of being young in the contemporary world and many fashion followers of his generation understand exactly what he's saying.
9 March 2002
Bernhard Willhelm has arrived as one of the most important designers of his generation, thanks in part to the sheer breadth of his creative range. In the past, he has given us everything from happy-go-lucky 80s pop chicks to naive housewives and, yes, even African dung-beetle chic.Hundreds of tendril-like filament lights and a soundtrack by Depeche Mode set the mood for Willhelm's New Wave-influenced take on futurism circa 1983. The designer mashed together a range of pop culture references with theatrical masks and allusions to the movie "Dune" turning up on witty sweatshirt dresses. His postmodern tribe members can get away with wearing everything from Liquid Sky makeup to sweatsuits with slit peekaboo seams, wrap paillette skirts with computer-print faces, flowing desert smocks, clouds of tulle, and cartoon-like guardsmen coats.Willhelm's accessories also stand out miles from the crowd. Witness a pair of perfectly flat fringed booties; a carry-all shaped like an animatronics bear (to be cradled like a baby); and a space-shuttle canvas tote.
6 October 2001
At Paris' legendary Moulin Rouge, Bernhard Willhelm ran full speed ahead with a powerful, beautiful and at times slightly overwhelming presentation.Gone were last season's adorable little homemakers with embroidered aprons and Heidi-like demeanor. Willhelm replaced them with tribes of nomads that wore long, striped overcoats, monastic dresses, twisted tops and kimono-style jackets. A giant projection of dancing skeletons served as a backdrop for colorful patchwork skirts, fringed shirts, argyle sweaters and tapestry-inlaid coats. Willhelm also showed several looks stamped with a random list of first names, which resembled a meaningless barrage of newspaper-print logos. Spanking-white sneakers kept the looks fresh and focused.Willhelm's collection could've used a bit of editing, but with this show it's clear that the German-born designer is one to watch very closely in the future.
10 March 2001