Studio2Retail Competition: Get to Know The Six Winners
Berlin Fashion Week beyond the runway: The competition format Studio2Retail honors innovative B2C event concepts from German fashion labels and brick-and-mortar stores. Key selection criteria include sustainability, diversity, and innovation. During Fashion Week, the winners open their doors to the public, hosting a variety of events such as showrooms and pop-ups. These six labels succeeded in impressing the jury.
COLRS
The creative mind behind COLRS is Cologne-born designer Zec Elie-Meiré, also known as Punkzec, who founded his menswear label in 2017. Storytelling is at the heart of his collections, which intertwine themes such as childhood memories, nostalgia, and free-spirit. For its most recent show, the label took guests on a stylistic journey to Brazil, while the Fall/Winter 2025 season was dedicated to a well-known Italian car rally. Multifaceted storytelling is the core element of the brand, from which each collection piece evolves. In addition, the label draws inspiration from art and culture and follows a sustainable design approach. COLRS primarily works with upcycling and vintage pieces, transforming them into new, contemporary creations: patchwork denim, slogan tops, and tailoring with a modern twist.
Kitschy Couture
With her label Kitschy Couture, designer Abarna Kugathasan celebrates diasporic identity, drawing on her own transcultural background and influences. In her designs, tradition meets the present: her most recent collection, for example, features both traditional saree drapings – a signature of the label – reinterpreted in new ways, as well as “I love Pforzheim” T-shirts. Through this, the Berlin-based fashion brand creates a stylish “culture clash” that has captured the attention of prominent fans such as singer Nina Chuba. Kitschy Couture is vibrant, opulent, optimistic, and sustainable. The label primarily works with deadstock materials, vintage fabrics, and second-hand pieces. Each collection is an invitation to immerse yourself in the multilayered world of Kitschy Couture – a manifesto for diversity, belonging, and cultural heritage.
Maqu
Sustainability is the driving force at Maqu, the label founded in 2016 in Berlin by Marisa Fuentes Prado. The Berlin-based brand, which also operates its own store, produces environmentally friendly, using organic materials and working with innovative, plant-based alternatives, for example leather made from cocoa. In her designs, the designer combines traditional and modern techniques, creating a distinctive design signature that merges her Peruvian roots with modern minimalism. Each collection incorporates social, ecological, and sustainable values. Marisa Fuentes Prado has already been recognized as a pioneer in ethical design, and the label itself has received prestigious awards for its work in inclusion, diversity, and sustainability.
Milk of Lime
Known for a design language that unites the rural with the urban and the unique with the mundane, designers Julia Ballardt and Nico Verhaegen create, with their label Milk of Lime based in Neustadt an der Weinstraße, a wardrobe for “contemporary poets.” The duo draws its inspiration primarily from nature, transforming these impulses into contemporary demi-couture that balances romance and roughness. Their collections exude a folkloric, mystical character, yet through the designers’ savoir-faire, this aesthetic is effortlessly translated into the present day. The starting point is always the material – its structure, texture, and tactility. For Milk of Lime, the focus lies on longevity in every aspect; the label creates seasonless fashion designed to last forever. Craftsmanship, distinctive constructions, and silhouettes that evoke tension and intrigue define the collections of this exceptional brand.
Plaid-à-Porter
Plaid-à-Porter gives vintage textiles – such as gobelin tapestries, crocheted blankets, and patchwork quilts – a second life by transforming them into unique couture pieces with a strong signature aesthetic. The bustiers, jackets, dresses, trousers, and more from the label, founded in 2023 by designer Estelle Adeline Trasoglu, are wearable heirlooms that bring forgotten treasures into the present. Each piece from the Berlin-based fashion label carries the memories, craftsmanship, and stories of the past, reinterpreted through contemporary silhouettes. The designer’s vision centers on a holistic appreciation of these special textiles. The fashion label works according to the zero-waste principle and uses intuitive construction techniques where the material always leads the way, and the design follows.
Vladimir Karaleev
The Berlin-based fashion label of designer Vladimir Karaleev has stood for progressive design since its founding in 2010: experimental and asymmetrical cuts, deconstructed silhouettes, a raw artistic expression, and innovative craftsmanship define its aesthetic. The label’s signature feature is its use of exposed seams. In Karaleev’s collections, organic forms meet collage-like layering, sculptural details, and unconventional textures. His work redefines contemporary everyday wear, while also embracing sustainable practices such as the use of deadstock and upcycled materials. The brand creates bold, extroverted fashion that remains effortlessly wearable, mastering the interplay between form, function, and imagination – a kind of secret formula that has sustained the designer’s success for over 15 years.