Now the successful Belgian designer Christian Wijnants is also opening a Berlin branch in the street, where only special brands settle.
Sabine Rothig
Christian Wijnants’ new store fits perfectly into Potsdamer Strasse, where luxury blends harmoniously with urbanity.OSTKREUZ/Thomas Meyer
Bright green, emerald green, mint … Christian Wijnants loves green. In his current collection, the Belgian fashion designer has mainly used light nuances of green, alongside other colors, of course. In soft wool and fine silk, the collection pieces float on organically shaped clothes rails in his newly opened Berlin store. The pace of passers-by on Potsdamer Strasse slows down when they pass this newcomer. Some stop in front of the large shop windows to take a look into the brightly lit room in which the designer himself is standing.
“I fell in love with the store straight away,” says Wijnants. He was particularly taken with the floor-to-ceiling windows. The fashion designer directs his gaze to the street. He has a cheerful, winning manner and comes across as completely fresh when he talks about his work – even though he has been running a successful brand for many years. His career began at the renowned Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, where Martin Margiela, Demna Gvasalia, Kris Van Assche and Dries Van Noten also studied. Wijnants worked for the latter before he began making collections for women under his own name. For years he has been showing these in the official calendar of Paris Fashion Week, the world’s most important fashion week.
Green is the favorite color of Belgian designer Christian Wijnants.Benjamin Hoehner
“I like to keep things that are already there,” Wijnants continues to explain his Berlin store. He points to a stately brass block in the center of the room. “This used to be a restaurant, so we kept the counter. We also left the floor and some of the walls as they were.” New elements have also been added, such as diagonally installed light strips on the ceiling, a silvery shimmering wall covering (insulating material made of aluminum that has been converted into luxury wallpaper) and the handmade brass clothes rails, which are in gentle curves meander along the walls. Wijnants says the curved shapes also correspond to his fashion, for which he prefers to use fine, flexible fabrics.
Wijnants lives in Antwerp, but is now more often in Berlin.Benjamin Hoehner
ABOUT
Antwerp designer Christian Wijnants is best known for his knitwear. Wijnants studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Art in Antwerp from 1996 to 2000. After graduating, he worked for Dries Van Noten for a year before founding his own label of the same name in 2003. His brand mainly stands for women’s collections, which he shows at Paris Fashion Week. In 2015 he opened his first flagship store in Antwerp and in autumn 2022 his second in Berlin. Christian Wijnants lives in Antwerp.
A short flight of stairs leads through a mint green airlock to the rear area, which is carpeted and lavish fittings are concealed behind heavy drapes of silver metallic material. Here it is less visible than in the front area towards the street. Architectural office Gonzalez Haase AAS, which also designed the imposing store for Andreas Murkudis on Potsdamer Strasse, helped Wijnants to implement his ideas. That’s one of the reasons why his shop probably doesn’t fit anywhere better than in this shopping street for connoisseurs, where brands like Acne Studios, Paul Smith and Odeeh are also located. For Berlin, the reopening means a further step towards becoming a serious fashion city.
Christian Wijnants, Potsdamer Strasse 91, 10785 Berlin, opening hours Mon–Sat, 11 a.m.–7 p.m., Tel.: +49 175 7064096, christianwijnants.com