Jale Richert and Michele Beil presented the Spring/Summer Collection 2020

RICHERT BEIL – RUNWAY SHOW UNSCHARF at the FASHIONWEEK

Jale Richert and Michele Beil presented the Spring/Summer Collection 2020 under the title 'UNSCHARF'. Inspired by Rudi Gernreich's visionary work in the late 1960s and 1970s, they presented a collection that challenges stereotypical ideals of beauty and deconstructs aesthetic differences between women and men as well as visual habits. The RICHERT BEIL collection supports people in finding and asserting their self-confidence in times of optimised body images and the increasing importance of virtual reality and social media.
Wool is once again a central element in this collection, that is created half for women and half for men. Combined with lighter fabrics such as silk and cotton, Richert and Beil interpret their favourite material in their sixth collection on a seasonal basis. UNSCHARF' offered video installation, performance and runway The show started with a voice intro that is demanding a change in the fashion industry regarding bodypositivity, terms of productio and responsibility for the environment. It was followed by the video constellation "THERE IS HUMAN UNDERNEATH", which was created in collaboration with Denis Bivour and Joachim Baldauf and which formed the prelude and the basis of the show. It documents in the style of a surveillance film how the RICHERT BEIL duo not only gets rid of their hair, but gradually also of their clothes.
Based on Gernreich's aesthetic actionism, the two designers demonstrate what happens when men and women free themselves from external and defining characteristics such as hair and clothing. The 30 looks of the Ready-to-Wear collection were presented in dramaturgical consistency by a diverse cast with also shaved hair. Underwear becomes haute couture in cooperation with CALIDA A special highlight of the collection: in cooperation with the Swiss laundry label CALIDA, a haute couture coat was created from more than 100 black bras, which were selected from dormant stocks in the spirit of up-cycling. Harald Lenzinger, Senior Product Manager / Design Men at CALIDA (https://www.calida.com): "Working with a young and avant-garde designer duo like Richert Beil is very exciting for a traditional brand like CALIDA. We are united by the unconditional demand to develop and produce fashion sustainably - that convinced us." The collaboration also resulted in two unisex lingerie pieces as a playful way of dealing with the high expectations placed on women when choosing their underwear, while men generally focus on comfort instead of sexiness. In the style of Rudi Gernreich's presentation of a desexualised way in which underwear functions, the RICHERT BEIL show showed a seamless thong in red and black panties that can be worn by all genders.
Tampon pendants, hairy rings and alienated accessories
Not only in their unisex fashion, which is tailored to individual physical demands, RICHERT BEIL gender roles and beauty standards are blurred, but also on the level of detail the theme was drawn through the staging: Based on their own radical haircuts, a 9-part special edition in silver was created together with the Berlin goldsmith and jewellery designer Johanna Gauder (https://johannagauder.com/), which varies between loud showpieces and more formal collection pieces. The key pieces are cast tampons worn as belts, earrings, and pendants. A statement both against the unjustified taxation of these everyday cosmetics as luxury items, and for the removal of taboos from the female cycle. The hair was not only missing on the heads of all protagonists – it can also be found in pieces of jewellery created by Gauder with great manual effort: The display of long strands of hair of different colours on rings and earrings transforms the cut-off, lifeless hair into a decorative accessory and stands opposite the premise that it can only be an eye-catcher on the preferably female head.
Together with the label Livalike (https://www.livalike.com/), which specializes in high-quality paper bags, Richert and Beil designed an elegant interpretation of the 'bag over the head'. A paper mask as an anonymization of the face finally releases the individual from all beauty standards, but also reminds of the presumptuous recommendation to hide a supposedly ugly face in order to spare others from it. Under the graphic direction of Dagmar Sucrow-Barthel, former art director at Helmut Lang, the Goodie Bags were created, which, under the title 'EVIDENCE/ Designer's DNA', literally gave the guests a special part of the designers beyond the staging: It included a strand of her hair and a pair of 'apparently' worn underpants.