Marke\u2019s Mario Kleine might be in the thrall of the past, yet there\u2019s something about his menswear that is absolutely rooted in the present. The softer, gentler, more fragile notion of tailoring that was the story of the recent run of European men\u2019s shows? The Koln-based Kleine has been doing that for seasons now, infusing it with poeticism and lyricism along the way. His latest he dubbed \u2018Remnants and Relics,\u2019 and very good it was too; a time-traveling 400-year odyssey with an Orlando-type character who gathers up a wardrobe of ivory high-buttoned, foppish suiting with a Death in Venice vibe to it: culotte shorts embellished with stripes of tiny buttons, and based on centuries-old German breeches called rhingraven, and high-rise officer\u2019s pants with a flourish of a decorative cummerbund at the waist.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe collection is based on the Virginia Woolf character,\u201d Kleine said after his show, \u201cbut it\u2019s also a development of last season\u2019s, which was based on the Enlightenment [the 18th century movement where fearful superstition gave way to rational, empirical knowledge]. Today we\u2019re also looking for knowledge, even though we\u2019re meant to have it all because it\u2019s on our phones.\u201d That\u2019s Kleine\u2019s smart trick here: to stop his view of history from simply being historicist. It\u2019s evident in the clothes, for sure, making things relevant for today\u2019s world, and how someone might want to wear them in 2027. So, a formal white tie jacket is partnered with voluminous gray track pants, while a tailcoat is turned into a charcoal tee, layered over a crisp white shirt and gray shorts. His shoes, substantial black lace-ups with squared off toes, done in collaboration with Dr. Martens, kept everything looking grounded too.<\/p>\n
At Marke, Kleine has been leaning into a more fluid idea of gender with his clothing, echoing the way that historical male dress could be decorative, dandy-ish, even quote-unquote feminine. In fact, everything for him starts with his tailoring. \u201cIt\u2019s because I start designing a collection with what I want to wear,\u201d Kleine said, laughing. \u201cThe tailoring becomes the baseline, and then I\u2019ll add things on top, like sweatpants, to bring it down, in a way.\u201d In a serendipitous act, he got to show his collection at Berlin\u2019s ICC Internationales Congress Centrum, a fabulous, hulking 1970s Brutalist building that has lain empty for some years, after being a conference center, then a safe haven for refugees to shelter, with rumors its next incarnation will be a culture epicenter. \u201cThis place has also been a time traveler,\u201d Kleine said. \u201cSeeing it lit up today for the show and being used again\u2026it\u2019s like it came back to life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marke\u2019s Mario Kleine might be in the thrall of the past, yet there\u2019s something about his menswear that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[18,40542,40601,40544,40543],"class_list":["post-48954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-berlin","tag-berlin","tag-berlin-spring-2027","tag-marke","tag-runway","tag-runway_review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}