Uli Richter Revisited – fashion thinker, teacher, inspiration

On the occasion of Uli Richter’s 90th birthday , the Kunstgewerbemuseum is presenting highlights from the work of the Berlin fashion designer. As the youngest among the Berlin couturiers, Uli Richter (born December 28, 1926 in Potsdam) shaped a style made in Berlin from the early 1950s . In his more than 40 years of fashion creation, he succeeded in reviving and consolidating Berlin’s reputation as an international fashion center. With his teaching activity at the University of the Arts in Berlin (today UdK) between 1986 and 1994, he inspired a large number of students. The results of these projects – clothes, design drawings and photographs – create a reference to the young Berlin fashion design scene of the 1980s and 1990s.

The exhibition in the Kunstgewerbemuseum shows around 40 costumes on over 300 square meters in addition to an extensive bundle of photographs, drawings and archive material from the art library’s holdings. With the first wedding dress, which Uli Richter designed in 1959 at the beginning of his self-employment, through dresses and designs from university projects to contemporary creations , a picture emerges from almost 70 years of fashion history.

How groundbreaking is the classic Uli Richter style today? The Berlin fashion designers Brachmann, William Fan, Firkant, Marina Hoermanseder, Barre Noire, Sample-cm, Michael Sontag, Steinrohner, Nobi Talai and Philomena Zanetti investigated this question. For their designs they were inspired by the Richter collection of the Kunstgewerbemuseum and developed a modern design with their own formal language. The designers’ models are shown in the third part of the exhibition and release the visitor to the multifaceted fashion metropolis of Berlin.