Designer: Dirty in the best sense - fashion - Tagesspiegel Facebook

Julia Heuse is an internet junkie. And she has friends who also like the internet. That has consequences: The label JuliaandBen, which she makes together with Benjamin Klunker, is blogged up and down. Blogger Mahret Kupka tries on a jersey dress with gathered shoulders and leggings in an online film at the designers' store. In an asymmetrical dress, she finally jumps around euphorically in front of the mirror. JuliaandBen have achieved real online fame through such recommendations.

Somehow she really does it. Perhaps that's why a fashion editor for the Internet service "Fashion Daily News" believed in the summer of 2008 that Ben Klunker had revealed something new to her when he used the term "New Rave" for his fashion. “She was very excited to have found such exciting designers and then from Berlin too. Our first collection was crass black and white and pretty aggressive,” says Julia Heuse.

Above all, there were leggings for boys in the first season, which are of course also worn by Ben Klunker. "We just didn't want to make so many pants, but complete outfits."

Also liked offline JuliaandBen: British Vogue showed the leggings in a fashion spread. Ben Klunker is a good model for his own designs: he can wear a chain of black cubes over a baggy jersey top with tight leather pants without looking silly or costumed. One simply enjoys trying out new things.

His business partner agrees: "Ben can wear anything." Julia Heuse is a good female alternative in her black mohair jacket with gold metal sequins, which makes her voluptuous body even more present. She regrets that many customers want their dresses in XS: "They also work in large."

Neither of the two corresponds to any kind of ideal form of the smooth fashion person. But they are perfect role models for all those who search the internet for styled individuals. You don't find your customers that young at all. "About thirty", as old as Ben Klunker.

He doesn't look as if he wants to be hired by a medium-sized fashion company any time soon, although he once had that in mind as a security option when he started his studies at the Esmod private school. But in the end he didn't even take the final exam because he would have had to change too much in his collection. "I knew anyway that I would start my own business."

JuliaandBen are the next generation of Berlin designers. They don't try to be particularly posh and show off with silk and velvet that they have nothing to do with backyard crafts. They don't design evening dresses - but in their dresses you can go through the night and the following day.

That's how they met. For a series of parties in Berlin, they were asked to design the appropriate clothing – to strengthen the identification of the clubgoers. Nothing came of the project, but Julia Heuse and Benjamin Klunker had a finished collection, which they took to the small Berlin avant-garde fair “Ideal” in 2007.

And because an order was placed there straight away, they continued. They now prefer to go to the trade fair in Paris than to stay in Berlin. "The German dealers only buy when they get international recognition," says Esmod graduate Julia Heuse.

JuliaandBen's stuff is dirty in the best sense of the word. They turned away from the Scandinavian clean pretty quickly. In the second season, they began tie-dying their jersey pieces in their domestic bathtubs. They have developed a special technique in which the fabrics are dipped in different color baths. They have their clothes made in Berlin and it is important to them to personally process as many as possible before selling them. The new leggings also have a very individual, hand-made pattern: running stitches run lengthways down the front parts, they are torn individually and lined with jersey.

They both think that as a designer you have to earn the right classic pieces of clothing first. Although they could well imagine stocking an entire collection with just coats, jackets and suits. Now they have moved into a studio with a large corner bath – to continue experimenting.

JuliaandBen, Torstrasse 230, Mitte

www.juliaandben.com