One of the reasons I love Berlin is because the city oozes with the juices of the freshly squeezed fruits of creativity and entrepreneurialism. As you stroll through the streets of unique boutiques and specialty stores, you often notice the walls before you notice the window displays. Paste-ups, bill posters, graffiti and street art cover every meter of prime wall space and the unmistakable scent of inspiration is in the breeze.
With cheaper rents and a distinctly alternative feel - East-Berlin has something for every sub-genre and sub-culture known and unknown to the world. Interwoven through the neighbourhood are countless of organically grown hangouts that began as train yards, factories or abandoned buildings. It’s a sprawling patchwork that is an example of how artists and designers have grown their own ‘business district’ within the larger city that aims to nourish the Creative Industry by investing in philosophical intrinsic values as well as developing more public spaces designed to foster social creative behaviours. The neighbourhoods exude an attitude of necessity to balancing the corporate skyscrapers by embedding visual and public art into a metropolitan city.
In this kind of environment, your imagination is the limit for how you design and present your business. Anything safe or too streamline and you’ll literally just be painted over. An example of this creative-business sprawl is the area in and around Simon-dach Strasse (Pronounced zee-mon-dagh strass-eh) in Friedrichshain-Kreusberg, that has come to be a hub for artists, independent designers and creative types to hang out, live and take their businesses into their own hands.
Antje Eismann (or Eisy to her friends), is a self-taught fashion designer who has established her fashion line from her atelier-store on Simon-dach. She has been in fashion for the last 8 years and since 2008, she has been producing her own designs from her shop/studio, Eismann Unikate. Her atelier is the back room of her shop and her colourful creations are brought straight to the store-front within minutes of her conceiving of them.
Eismann says her draws her inspiration from the street. She describes the fashion in Berlin as “crazy” with a lot of mixing old with new. Berlin fashion is sort of fusion of vintage with the touch of designers reinterpreting and reinventing. “I’m always looking at people. I see what they wear and what cuts and material and how they mix their style. I like colours and the combination of strong colours,” she explains.
When asked about the difference between her summer and winter collection she responds, “I change my collection every day. I invent on the fly. I look what material I have, I take it on my table and decide what I’ll make.”
When she’s on a role, she can make up to three pieces in a day and all the pieces are unique because of the way Eismann works. She sources her material from local markets in Kreuzberg and other flea markets around the city. Recycling clothes and transforming other people’s thrown out wardrobe into fresh and bright modern street wear.
Eisy is a prime example of the mind-set of Berlin artists and designers who want to bring their art into the public eye. Instead of waiting to be discovered, they take it on themselves to bring their imagination to life. And even further than that - create a tangible way for people to not only buy but experience their creativity. Silicon Valley is to the dot com start-up what Berlin is to DIY-small-business.
Eisy can produce her products and test out evolving ideas that could literally change from day-to-day, even hour-to-hour and she is only be answerable to her customers. This kind of business champions the resurgence of lo-fi prototyping and urban recycling which adds a new aesthetic of ‘old with new’ to the products and spaces being developed carrying with it, a strong sense of responsibility to social and environmental sustainability. No wonder artists and designers from around the globe are flocking over there to be a part of this creative surge.
Photo credit: https://getamen.com/misterschtief/amen/eismann-unikate-is-the-best-selfmade-hoodies-in-berlin
