New Conciousness
Designer Angelika Kammann interweaves sustainability and avant-garde to create her independent fashion brand Société Angelique. Her conceptual creations are packed with craftsmanship, experience and an unwavering vision to create a new consciousness for fashion. VIVID spoke to the enterprising creative who wants to change an entire industry from her Mönchengladbach studio.
Angelika Kammann combines individuality and sustainability withvolume and craftsmanship to create her Société Angelique collection.
A life for fashion: Angelika Kammann started sewing her own outfits when she was still at school. After an apprenticeship as a tailor in Krefeld and fashion studies at the renowned ESMOD in Paris, she worked as a designer for major fashion brands such as Strenesse, Escada, Iris von Arnim and Martin&Osa. Kammann commuted between Germany and the world, lived and worked in Paris, Milan and New York, travelled alone through China for weeks. She absorbed inspiration everywhere. She describes herself as a restless vagabond, always driven by the search for perfection, the right amount of volume and shape. During her time in New York, she founded the knitwear label The German Fräuleins together with a designer friend. Then followed the move back to Europe, where she worked closely with Wolfgang Joop for Wunderkind. It was the beginning of a creative soul mate that she still raves about today. Joop's unconventional ideas finally inspired her to turn her back on the industry for good and start her own business. In 2020, Kammann founded the brand Société Angelique. A success story in fast motion, her garments have since graced the covers of magazines like FAZ and Icon, runways at Berlin Fashion Week and galleries and showrooms in Paris and Tokyo.
With Société Angelique you want nothing less than to change the fashion industry. What specifically is bothering you?
In the course of being self-employed, it has become even clearer to me that the fashion industry is stuck in structures that need to be rethought. It moves very sluggishly and therefore does not allow for any honest form of sustainability. I want to break down structures, think more creatively about fashion, let buyers and end consumers participate and create absolute transparency. Especially in the big corporations, commerce determines the cut. Every original idea of a design is changed until a sales success is generated. This has increasingly frustrated me because I believe that fashion must be able to do more than simply follow marketing strategies.
“Mode ist für mich ein Ausdruck der Persönlichkeit.
An einem Tag sinnlich und feminin zu wirken,
am nächsten Tag maskulin und androgyn.”
What value should fashion have?
For me, fashion is an expression of personality. I want to give my customers the opportunity to underline their individuality and also to deviate from the norm. To look sensual and feminin one day, masculine and androgynous the next. I realise this individual expression with Société Angelique, named after a philosophical gathering of humanists in the 16th century. Inspired by this, I also want to found a society of like-minded people who want to create a new consciousness together and make the fashion industry a better world.
To what extent can fashion really be sustainable?
By building smaller collections that reduce oversupply in the market. By using durable materials that are ecologically degradable. And with sophisticated design. The customer should buy less, but long-lasting favourite pieces. In other words, clothing that is characterised by high quality, honest craftsmanship and transparency. For example, by means of microchips or QR codes that are printed or sewn into the finished pieces. This way, the customer can see exactly where the quality comes from and by whom it was processed. Equal opportunities and diversity are an important basis for my company. I work with producers in Germany and other European countries whom I have known and appreciated for a long time. I know that they work ethically and treat their employees fairly.
Fließende Stoffe und Blumenprints treffen bei Société Angelique auf androgyne Schnitte.
What sustainable approach do you follow in production?
The focus is on a holistic rethinking of the use of raw materials and making the entire value chain more sustainable. Conscientious use of resources is very important to me, such as the precise calculation of production quantities in order to utilise available quantities of materials or other ingredients absolutely efficiently. I mainly use natural materials like wool, horn buttons, RSC certified viscose and linen. Tags or wash labels are deliberately made from cotton. I try to avoid polyester and not to produce surpluses in production. Scraps left over from cutting are collected and in future will be processed into new materials in cooperation with the start-up Brain of Materials.
“In den großen Konzernen bestimmt der Kommerz den Schnitt. Jede Ursprungsidee wird so lange verändert bis ein Verkaufserfolg generiert ist.”
Your collection is very conceptual. How do you approach ist development?
The individual collections always build on each other. That is also sustainable. The core of the previous collection is the basis for the new developments of the next one. They also build on each other intellectually. I am inspired by art. An exhibition by Louise Bourgois, for example, the works of Salvador Dali or Donald Judd's examination of space. Finding volume is crucial for my collection. This can involve special techniques, but is mainly done through drawings and working with the model makers, who are a valuable part of the Société Angelique team.
Do you use digital techniques in your work?
Part of the sustainable aspect is to do as many steps as possible digitally, such as editing with via the digital CLO system. For my prints, I work with the artist and graphic designer Marcel Lunkwitz. For the last collection, we used an AI to generate prints for the first time. It was fascinating and a wonderful tool that we would like to expand in the future.
“Heute ist der Endkunde oft mutiger als der Einzelhandel.Ich wünschte mir hier
mehr Risiko beim Einkauf.”
Das Spiel mit Silhouetten gehört zum kreativen Kern des Labels.
Apart from sustainability, what are the biggest challenges facing the fashion industry?
There is a lack of courage to think differently in all areas. The fashion of the 80s and 90s offers immense inspiration to young people right now. There was more courage for individuality back then and I would like to call for that! Often the end customer is more courageous than the retailer. I would like to see more risk in purchasing here, in order to place a diverse range with different signatures on the market on a long-term basis.Mönchengladbach and Düsseldorf are great locations to quickly reach my important anchor points in Europe. The peace and serenity in the Rhineland and in my cherished home give me a lot of strength and inspiration.
What successes can you look back on with your rather young collection?
So much has happened in the last two years. I was able to show my collection at Berlin Fashion Week and Berliner Salon. My clothes are sold at KaDeWe. And Christiane Arp, style icon and long-time editor-in-chief of German Vogue, is wearing a blazer of mine. All this is like a knighthood for me.
What advice do you give to young talents?
Follow your heart! Every step in your career leads to the result you want. •
Words: KAROLINA LANDOWSKI
Pictures Société Angelique, Gregor Hohenberg