Even before Marie Lueder’s show started, we were treated to a show. In the cavernous mid-century grandeur of the Palais am Funkturm, Lueder had created a set of three ga-ga-gargantuan silver inflatable Venus flytraps by Danish artist Esben Weile Kjaer, menacing with their huge vicious teeth, but also a little cartoon-like and playful: It was the Little Berlin Shop of Horrors brought to life, one day only, limited engagement. Meanwhile, writhing around in the shadow of these enormous inflatables was a young woman, clad in a brown stocking Lueder dress with selvedge seams and Ugg slippers, before collapsing and being hoisted onto the shoulders of a sinewy figure clad in a gauzy second-skin dress and Ugg boots.
That signaled the start of the show, which worked its way through some of the designer’s very best Luederisms: chunky graphic ribbed sweaters; supersized utilitarian cargo pants and shorts; filmy short dresses à la the ’90s; distressed faded jeans traced with topstitched circular seaming; and a series of upcycled vintage Death Metal cut-up and collaged tees featuring more befanged creatures in the form of dragons. All of this exists on some spiritual and aesthetic plane between gritty keep-it-real Berlin and equally gritty and equally keep-it-real London. (I didn’t pick those cities out randomly btw; Lueder, who’s German, lives and shows in London, as well as Berlin twice yearly.)
Yet in a way, Lueder’s show was about more than herself and her vision of fashion. That’s not a diss, incidentally, but a tacit acknowledgement that when it came to this particular show, Lueder not only welcomed but embraced a little help from her friends—it’s something that she was quick to point out during her post-show backstage interview. Lueder did, as she always does, embrace the support and contribution of community. “We all wanted to work together, this insane group,” she said, laughing. “[The show] was about this question we had: what is runway and what is performance, what is acting?” Her models, which included creatives like Ruby Commey and Luisa Gaffron, led by movement director David Varhegyi, encouraged a sense of expressiveness in everyone who walked the show. It was a mesmerizing spectacle. “The music [sung by Roman Ole, with sound by Oscar Khan] was in three moments—the morning, the battle, and the conclusion, which was quite light,” Lueder said. “I was backstage listening for that last moment, and felt almost sad,” she went on to say, before breaking into a smile. “It was a long show, but I hoped it left the audience feeling something.”
Lueder’s work continues to be intriguing because of her willingness to locate an emotion in what she does, and how she presents it—and to encourage those watching her shows to do the same thing. If last season she brilliantly sallied into sexual politics—her slogan tee, Men Are So Back—was a brilliant piece of biting social commentary at a time when the narrative was that we need more, not less, patriarchy, yay. This time round the messaging was immersive; the dragon theme, evident visually on the tees and in the moves of the models confronting some unseen forces, was about facing and vanquishing those who control and oppress you. Appropriately enough, Lueder has called the collection SLⱯY.