23th June 2022 – By Promostyl

INTRODUCTION TO COLLECTIVE CREATION : CATALOGUE OF DISGUISE

“Fashion is the most powerful art there is. It’s movement, design & architecture all in one. It shows the world who we are and who we’d like to be !”. Yes we are opening the article by quoting Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl but it all ties together, we promise !

Fashion is indeed a combination of many parts from the creative world and in that sense, a new form of fashion design is gaining in popularity : Collectives ! Think about it, who better to insert music, dance or even architecture in any project than a musician, a dancer or an architect ? Fashion designers have obviously found inspirations in those fields for decades but with collectives the vision is even clearer because it is brought by someone who specialises in said field and can make its feel in a project or collection even stronger than initially intended. Look closely at Instagram and you’ll quickly realise that fashion by new designers is no longer a one man show (well, it never really was but at least now the contributors aren’t in the background anymore !).

There is strength in numbers and in creative diversity and if there’s one collective who gets it, it’s Berlin based Catalogue of Disguise.

Catalogue of Disguise, founded in 2018 by fashion designer Tanja Bombach “invites performance artists, sound artists, designers & audience alike to renegotiate who we are.” as they say themselves. The collective gives space and a voice to up and coming Berlin artists to tell their stories as many often struggling to find opportunities to show their work on their own terms. The multidisciplinary platform blurs the lines between fashion design, performance, sound, and film and “consists of hybrid formats with no clear categories,” as Bombach states. That’s where the magic of multidisciplinary collectives lies.

It stands to reason that the most exciting things are happening underground, anyway, with Catalogue of Disguise a perfect example of the ingenuity and spirit of collaboration that underpins Berlin’s creative scene, designed to bring some of the most exciting minds working today to the fashion masses. Like Berlin’s community, its success also lies in its transient nature, as it moves from film, to music, to dance performance with ease. “People like it when they can’t put something in a box or category,” Bombach surmises. “They ask themselves: Is it a fashion show? Is it a performance? Is it a music event?” To find an answer to this question, you have to experience it yourself.