Re-Engineering Power: A Conversation with Laura Gerte

Laura Gerte: After nearly 13 years, Berlin no longer feels performative, it’s simply home. Being surrounded early on by born-and-bred Berliners grounded my experience, making the city feel normal rather than romanticized. I’ve learned I’m made for big cities, and after time in Paris, returning to Berlin before COVID was a conscious choice. It felt right, like the place I’ll stay for the long term.

In the beginning, definitely. I was completely in love with the city, cycling around, suddenly turning into a beautiful street or a wide open space and thinking, oh my god, I’m finally here. During my studies I spent a lot of time exploring, looking for new places. That curiosity never really went away. No matter how long you live here, or even if you’re born here, Berlin is so big that there’s always something new to discover, and it’s easy to forget just how vast and full of people it really is.

That really came with doing shows. Before, my focus was always on the garment itself, textures, surfaces, textiles, and the final piece. I didn’t believe much in concept; it was about making the clothes. That shifted over time. With more experience and a broader view of the world, I’ve developed clearer positions on certain topics and a desire to express them through my work. I’ve been doing fashion for a long time, but the shows marked the moment when I felt ready to share my perspective, not just the garments.

Yes, the most recent one, the Spring/Summer collection. The process was very vulnerable and emotionally intense. It dealt with the complexity of the feminine experience, that constant state of alertness just from moving through the world. The mix of anger and vulnerability made it painful to create, but it also opened up a new level in my work and self-expression. The way people connected with it, and the intimacy and intensity of the show, really confirmed that shift.

For me, newness is more about re-engineering ideas than about something being brand new. The cutting process creates so much waste, so I try to work with the whole garment, turning it inside out, upside down, back to front, or reworking details, to create something new without producing excess. It’s not zero-waste, but it’s about being more conscious.

Newness also isn’t about owning an idea. So many people make great clothes; what matters is how an idea is framed and presented. I’m not interested in things that feel fresh out of the factory. Working with secondhand garments that carry traces of past lives feels much more meaningful to me, there’s newness in their continued life cycle, not in being completely new.

The collection is inspired by the cultural trope of the female villain, reexamined through a feminist lens. I was interested in questioning whether these characters are truly “evil,” or simply framed that way because they represent autonomy, maturity, and a refusal to be contained by society, family, or men. These figures are almost always adult women, which implies knowledge, confidence, and power, and that kind of uncontrollable presence is often labeled as threatening.

That energy shaped the collection. What was vulnerable and angry last season has transformed, we’ve moved through it. This time, the stance is unapologetic, self-assured, and fully grounded in that power.

Yes, very much so. Each collection has become a reflection of my own journey through womanhood, how I feel about myself, my friendships, and the different stages we move through. As you get older, it becomes more interesting because you know yourself better, understand the world more clearly, and interact with it differently.

Each collection has its own tone, but through a feminist lens I’ve really found my voice. What interests me most creatively is my own journey, and the shared journey of my sisters.

A fashion show is both exciting and vulnerable. You spend so long alone with the collection, and then suddenly it’s out in the world, seen and judged. You want it to be received well, but you can’t create with that in mind.

There’s always a tension between what I want to say and what I think others might expect, and each season I have to let go of that and stay true to my own voice. In the end, the show isn’t really for me, it’s a moment of sharing with my community, friends, and family. Once it’s out there, it belongs to everyone.

Styling is incredibly important to me. My stylist, Luisa Probst, is also one of my best friends, and our collaboration feels very natural and playful. She understands my work in the way I always hoped someone would, and really brings out what the clothes are about.

Working together feels like two friends playing dress-up, which makes the process both fun and intuitive. Her interpretation plays a huge role in how the collection ultimately looks and feels.

It’s a jacket made from vintage suit jackets. The silhouette is something I’ve been working with for a long time, very slim, elongated, and sculptural but this time translated into wool, which gives it a completely different presence. We introduced an unexpected volume at the front, which pushed it somewhere new.

That piece really set the direction for the collection. When we tried it on, everything clicked, it became the catalyst for what followed. It was also the opening look.

For a long time, I resisted making the collection almost entirely black and dark, it felt too obvious for a winter season. That was really my inner saboteur talking. At some point I realized it was exactly what I wanted, and once I accepted that, everything opened up.

We focused on creating depth through materials and layering rather than color. Clean textures, exposed layers, and visible craftsmanship allowed us to sculpt the pieces in a very intentional way. Alongside that, there are punk elements like vintage T-shirt patchwork, sensual touches in stretchy deadstock satin, and very intimate knitwear that hints at the body without fully revealing it. That mix of darkness, structure, and suggestion feels right for this collection.

My inspiration is quite elusive, it often comes from ideas or things I’ve read, heard, or seen years ago that suddenly reconnect through conversations. A lot of it happens through the people around me. I have a close friend who’s deeply immersed in philosophy and psychology, and I often meet her at the beginning of a collection to talk things through. She’ll point me toward references that give my thoughts more depth and structure.

In general, it’s these exchanges that shape my work. The people in my life have known me at different stages, and each of them contributes something unique to my creative journey.