GmbH’s “Imitation Of Life” SS26 Confronts Beauty In The Ruins

Under the weight of a world unraveling, GmbH’s Spring 2026 show titled Imitation of Life wasn’t just fashion — it was elegy, protest, and prayer stitched into silhouette. Presented amidst the charged energy of Berlin Fashion Week and supported by Berlin Contemporary, the collection wrestled with what it means to still create when every instinct tells you to mourn.

Designers Benjamin A. Huseby and Serhat Işık offered more than clothes — they offered a reflection. One shaped by four seasons spent building beauty in the shadow of genocide, horror, and moral collapse. “How can we revisit childhood without devastation?” they asked. “How do we stay sane in a world led by psychopaths?” Imitation of Life doesn't offer answers, but it doesn't look away either.

Sleepwalking in Silk, Dreaming in Denim

This collection moved like a dream half-remembered. There were references to family home videos, rites of passage, and clothes that feel like fragments — uniforms of joy, uniforms of survival. Boxy tailoring met soft sheers. Satin clung like memory. Belts sliced across coats like restraints, but also like lifelines. It was romantic, broken, and tender in ways fashion rarely dares to be.

GmbH didn’t just return to childhood — they refracted it. Hints of play peeked through: delicate embroidery that felt like lullabies, movement that recalled dance recitals, and silhouettes that hovered between fantasy and function. This wasn’t nostalgia. It was remembering through the fog — haunted, hesitant, human.

Mourning and Moving Forward

With casting by Affa Osman and movement directed by MJ Harper, the show was charged with silent resistance. Bodies didn’t just walk — they carried weight. The absence of spectacle became the spectacle. The clothing dared to speak even when words felt impossible. Styled by Ellie Grace Cumming and set against sound by Simon Parris, Imitation of Life was equal parts protest and poetry.

For GmbH, this isn’t about trends — it’s about testimony. “We are sleepwalking,” they say. And yet, somehow, even in that sleep, they dream vividly, angrily, softly. They offer a blueprint for staying human when humanity feels like a myth. In a world suspended in grief, they’ve stitched together a fragile, flickering pulse of something still alive. Maybe even beautiful.