Schau26 of the Berlin University of the Arts

Berlin, July 4, 2026
On Saturday, July 4, 2026, Bleibtreustraße in Charlottenburg became a stage for fashion, protest, and public life. With Schau26, Berlin University of the Arts presented its graduate and semester work not in a closed show setting, but in the middle of the city – right on the street, in front of over 1,000 people.

©@333maricavon_by_MaricaCambareri_for_BFW-1

Residents, passers-by, industry guests, photographers, friends, families, and Berlin’s fashion scene lined Bleibtreustraße. Produced with the Friends of Bleibtreustraße, the show marked the first collaboration between Berlin University of the Arts and PLATTE.Berlin.
Under the title Silver Lining: Fashion as Protest, eleven graduates and five semester projects from UdK Berlin’s Institute for Experimental Clothing and Textile Design presented their work.
The format made a clear statement: fashion doesn’t need a closed room to be taken seriously. It can go outside. Onto the street. Into the rhythm of the city. To where staged presentation and
spontaneous street life stop existing as separate things.

The work moved between fashion and protest, between garment and gesture. Some collections used construction as argument: exaggerated silhouettes, deconstructed cuts, textile statements built to be visible across an entire street. Others worked quieter, more precise, almost incidental – negotiating questions of visibility, access, and public space through fabric, form, and body.
The runway wasn’t a closed stage. It was public space. The collections moved through an
environment that was backdrop, audience, and resonance chamber all at once. Passers-by who hadn’t planned to stop, stopped. Neighbours came out onto their balconies. The show didn’t ask for an audience – it emerged in the middle of one. The shops along Bleibtreustraße became part of the show too: several storefronts displayed the designers’ sketches and drafts, making the process visible before the looks themselves hit the street.

Across all sixteen positions, one attitude held: clothing as language. Not just something worn, but a means of taking a position.
The turnout confirmed what the show already argued: creative infrastructure doesn’t emerge on its own. It needs places, allies, and a city willing to become visible – not just through funding, but
through attention, foot traffic, and the willingness to rethink a street for one evening.
Friends of Bleibtreustraße, BID Ku’damm-Tauentzien, and PLATTE.Berlin stood behind Schau26 as proof of what that support makes possible: not a symbolic gesture for young designers, but real visibility in real urban space.
For PLATTE, Schau26 is further proof of a growing case: the next generation of Berlin’s creative economy doesn’t need a sheltered space. It needs access, a stage, and visibility – in the middle of the market, in the middle of the city, in the middle of Fashion Week.

Credits:
Presented by: Berlin University of the Arts – Institute for Experimental Clothing and Textile Design
Title: Silver Lining: Fashion as Protest
Location: Bleibtreustraße, Charlottenburg
Produced with: Friends of Bleibtreustraße
Supported by: BID Ku’damm-Tauentzien
In collaboration with: PLATTE.Berlin