For Ottolinger, summer means “slippery” dresses, salty nights, hot thunder, and high heels. “It’s a coalition of different worlds,” Christa Bösch and Cosima Gadient said over Zoom from Berlin. “There’s a lot of goth and pink around town right now, and we thought it would be fun to give it the Ottolinger twist.”
For summer, their goth beach rave veers into the existential, notably with skull prints placed in such a way that they can sometimes appear abstract when worn. Avatar-y silhouettes blend disintegrating knits with hot pants plus Spartacus-on-Mars boots from a successful ongoing collaboration with Puma. New this season are teetering heels kitted out with deconstructed asymmetric lacing.
What isn’t visible here are the new solutions the designers have been experimenting with to keep their clothes as right-minded as possible. Rib knits are all organic, those skull pieces in print mesh are made from recycled polyester, and pieced-together denims are worked in a new fabric made from partially reused and recycled fibers. Skirts, in particular, are rigged to adjust, pending how badass or office appropriate one might need to look. A loop system on a shiny pouf-skirt dress likewise creates long or short styling options.
“We’re aware of the times, but we wanted to keep it fun,” the duo said. “It doesn’t help if you sit around thinking the world is going under, so we try to keep a sense of humor.”
