Looking for Something Brief and Abbreviated yet Decorative This Summer? Look No Further Than Lou de Betoly

“I like funny,” said Lou de Betoly, laughing, “but sometimes I think I like funny too much.” A Berlin transplant from Paris of several years standing, De Betoly came to this German city after a stint on the Gaultier Paris haute couture team, and she certainly does like funny, of the mordantly witty variety. With her eponymous label she has brilliantly cast a wryly knowing look at what is currently presented as femininity in the culture: the good, and the not so good. (You can take a guess at what pop cultural juggernauts I am talking about in both regards.)

Currently De Betoly chooses to do a runway show once a year, and her collection this past January played to her strengths quite considerably. These include the simultaneous celebration and subversion of lingerie (an ever-present theme in Berlin, it has to be said); the delicacy and punkishness of light, airy cobwebby sweater dressing; and a fiercely committed stance on working with whatever she has to hand.

To that last point, she took the swishy, kitschy curtains she used for a presentation at her store last summer, colored a shade of fetish-y, saccharin-sweet pink that David Lynch would have loved, and cut it up into looks for her January runway show. (She must have had plenty of it left over, because she also worked it into a strict yet elegant tailleur only a matter of days ago; you can watch her doing so on her Instagram account, @loudebetoly. It’s well worth a look.)

All this is to say that in doing the once-a-year thing, she’s also still thinking about how to keep offering, mindfully of course, more Lou de Betoly when she’s not showing—to make a statement, and sell in a way that works for her, and that means not getting into the endless merry-go-round of always doing shows. At her presentation in her store during Berlin Fashion Week, she came up with a fantastic idea: create a see it now, buy it now, and definitely wear it now capsule that takes the humble cotton tank, in black or white cotton, and turns it into a dress.

Each tank’s hem has been embellished: adding vintage lace; draping and folding a vintage nightdress to become a conceptualized version of a ruffle; attaching a sliver of distorted (her word) black and white houndstooth jacquard knit; and, applying shards of perspex. “I took details from all the looks in my last show collection,” she said, “and used them for the tanks. You have this typically masculine piece of underwear, and then it becomes something quite different; this short, short, dress.” For those looking for something brief and abbreviated yet decorative this summer, this is where to come. (De Betoly also told me that all of them range in price from around 165 to 695 euros.)

My personal favorites had vintage bras, very Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, hanging from the hems, but those reworked nether garments also popped up elsewhere. De Betoly stitched a bra onto the flap of a very bourgeois, ladylike purse, wittily turning the cups into pockets. Like everything else here, her bra pieces were playful, knowing, cool and inspired. Plus, said de Betoly with more than a hint of pride, “Everything is made right here in Berlin.”