Exclusive: Benjamin A. Huseby and Serhat Isik talk through GmbH’s Autumn/Winter 2019 campaign, which hints at NASA portraits of astronauts
- TextAnother Man
The brand GmbH was born on Berlin’s dancefloors back in 2016. Helmed by Benjamin A. Huseby and Serhat Isik, the label has since built a reputation not only for its clubwear-led sensibility, but for its commitment to sustainability (the designers often employ deadstock in their collections), its tenacious yet sensitive exploration of the immigrant experience (both Huseby and Isik are the children of immigrants), and its tailoring – something that was particularly evident at the brand’s Spring/Summer 2020 show in June, which Vogue Runway described as “among the best fashion collections in Paris this season”.
Today, in the wake of that show, the brand reveals its Autumn/Winter 2019 campaign, exclusively on AnotherManmag.com. This campaign, say Huseby (who shot the images) and Isik, “reimagines GmbH as a corporation in the near future exploring space for future human settlements, if our current ecological crisis is not properly dealt with. The images hints at NASA portraits of astronauts, as well as science and political conferences.”
The collection itself, which was shown at Paris Men’s Fashion Week in January, on the last night of the Blood Moon, was titled Rare Earth, and represented a “call to action” – again reflecting the brand’s modus operandi as a vehicle for Huseby and Isik to communicate on the most pressing issues of the day.
“Through several seasons GmbH has explored issues around our own families’ experiences of migration,” say the designers. “Leaving the planet would be the final migration, but is also used as an image to highlight the current displacement of millions of people across the world by war, famine and natural disasters caused by human exploitation of the planet. As interstellar travel is unlikely to be an option in the near future, and terrestrial planets that can truly support life are currently nowhere near; our home, that we in such a short time have nearly destroyed and depleted for its natural resources, is truly a Rare Earth.”
