Autumn/Winter 2020
Y L E M
The designers of GmbH, Benjamin Huseby and Serhat Isik, have always explored their origins and where they are going as a community, a family and as humans. Their heritage and their wishes for the future deeply informs their collections and the adaptations that may come.
This season they wanted to go back even further in sense of time. Back to everything and everyone’s origins. The AW2020 collection is titled YLEM, after the epoch that came shortly after the birth of the universe where all matter was created where it’s still possible to see the first light of the universe, measured by radio and micro waves. Coincidentally, Ylem is phonetically similar to « ailem », Turkish for « my family » where Serhat Isik’s family origins are from.
Considering their own origins, and those of GmbH, was an opportunity to meditate on what GmbH as a brand truly is. Tailoring and dressmaking have always driven the designer; from a pair of jeans, hoodie or coat, cut has always been an integral aspect of the house codes. The basis is an atelier way of working, where Serhat Isik cuts all the patterns that gives GmbH its own personal handwriting.
GmbH reassessed every aspect and created this collection together with their closest friends and collaborators. The show music was composed by Bill John Bultheel accompanied by the contra tenor Steve Katona. They designed jewellery with Marco Panconesi and artist Oliver Bijan painted the zodiac and night sky.
Ylem is both poetry and physics.
Though the future seems uncertain for all of us, from dark matter comes light.
KEY GARMENT NOTES
Fitted coats with sculpted sleeves in patchwork of felted wool in grey and black.
Knitted merino rib rashguards and dresses with peekaboo holes in cream and black.
Multicoloured patchwork dresses in aran and rib knit in merino wool with viscose drape and mesh inserts.
Fake fur coats made from mohair and wool.
Boxy trench coats in recycled polyester and organic cotton.
Prints of chains, inspired by geometric MENASA ornaments from the 1400s in black /white and fuchsia/yellow. Prints of the night sky with stars and moons and the zodiac.
Leather coats and jackets made from corn.
Off shoulder zip up tops in rib recycled wool.
Jewellery made from upcycled stones and amber set in recycled resin with gold and silver plated recycled brass.
neither sea nor land nor the shining realms of the sky
nor the race of men, nor even the bodies of gods could
stand
still for the shortest part of an hour – for that hoard
of matter, driven abroad from its union would rush,
dissolved
through the huge void
– Lucretius (De Rerum Natura)