The Skin We Wear: UNVAIN SS27
WRITTEN BY SOPHIE MAY
EDITED BY LAUREN BULLA
BERLIN FASHION WEEK
21.07.26
PHOTOGRAPHY BY LA MIKS
Reminiscing on a time when men more openly donned ripped jeans, tight tops, fur, and feathers, UNVAIN threw us back to the peak indie sleaze with its SS27 collection, SKINS. Mirroring the condition of the ICC Berlin, the brand’s second season runway existed somewhere between memory and reinvention. Founder Robert Friedrichs described SKINS as a young collection centred around youth, an age where identity is constantly tried on, discarded, and rebuilt. Together, the garments carried the fierce aspiration, trained confidence, and performative attitude of this life stage. These traits stem from the collection’s unique gestation, where each look was built around an imagined character. Seemingly borrowing its structure from the British television series Skins, where each episode revolved around a single protagonist. The show was less a sequence of outfits, and more an accumulation of personalities, each constructing its own world.
The show targeted the olfactory senses before the retinas. A large-scale scent installation, courtesy of fragrance house RYOKO, placed the audience inside the world firstly. Before the lights rose or the soundtrack began, guests received a booklet containing the character sentences in the order they would appear. The runway became less about watching models and more about people-watching. Lines such as, “She herself is a mystery, but she likes it that way,” transformed silhouettes into individuals rather than anonymous bodies. UNVAIN explored one of the defining experiences of youth: The constant performance of identity. Adolescence is a period of trying on different versions of ourselves, and SKINS captured the instability inherent in constructing who we are meant to become. Heavy parkas, softened duffle coats, and sharply cut jackets were layered against translucent slips and lace, creating a dialogue between self-protection and vulnerability. The tension between opacity and transparency echoed one of the collection’s central questions: What does clothing conceal, and what does it reveal? UNVAIN never attempted to resolve this contradiction, instead it embraced the uncertainty of becoming.
Deadstock leather sourced through ZEROW sat alongside artisanally aged textiles and upcycled furs from SELLPY, creating garments that appeared to have lived lives of their own. While the sustainability credentials deserve recognition, the more compelling conversation lies in what these materials represent. Fashion has entered an era of algorithmic nostalgia. Today’s youth inherit visual languages long before they inherit the experiences that produced them. They romanticise eras they never lived through, adopting the symbols of previous subcultures and transforming them into new forms of self-expression. SKINS is aware of this contradiction. By creating fictional characters dressed in garments that already carry traces of another life, UNVAIN questions whether identity is ever completely original. The silhouettes oscillated confidently between structure and softness. Military references, particularly through reimagined duffle coats and Hussar-inspired lacing, introduced discipline and restraint. All the while, sheer fabrics and feathered textures disrupted would-be lingering senses of rigidity.
These opposing forces reflected the instability of youth itself, moving between over-confidence and fragility. The weight of the garments and the construction of the materials mirrored the complexity of identity itself. The deliberate undone elements felt rebellious, as though each piece was caught between destruction and reinvention. The darker, monochromatic palette reflected intensity and the desire to be seen while remaining protected. By the final look, SKINS had demonstrated that clothing can operate as something far more complex than self-expression alone. It became armour, memory and performance all at once, even when some of those memories belonged to someone else. Moving beyond spectacle, UNVAIN presented fashion as a conversation about identity in an age of recycled culture.
