If the recent (excellent) run of spring 2026 shows in Berlin were hyper-focused on actually being there, in real time, in often quite incredible locations, focused on the living, breathing fashion directly in front of you, designer Gerrit Jacob took a different tack. GAME OVER is his latest offering (and available to buy, incidentally, from August 2025 onwards) and its presentation was a full on assault on the senses, held on the closing day of the schedule. Instead of a show, there was a screening of a short film directed by his friend Simon Kounovsky.
The film was a CGI-created, Gerrit Jacob-clad dystopian world paved with paper money, one note burning on a flagpole, while legions of figures dressed in Jacob’s supersized tracksuits, quilted bombers, crop zippered jackets, and short sculpted skirts screen-printed with global currencies—dollars, euros, and pounds sterling—stomped across what might have been described in the vacation brochure as a hellscape. The soundtrack, by Manuka Honey, another friend, was both symphonic and apocalyptic, a mood heightened by the screening space, eerily lit in a oh, excuse, me, I didn’t see you there half-light, with a few collection-clad mannequins slumped in chairs and across tables. Meanwhile, we were walking across a carpet of discarded fake currency.
Unsurprisingly, this was no flash-the-cash paean to wealth, despite the money leitmotif. “These notes,” his show notes explained, “no longer signify wealth. They signify fatigue.” In a post screening conversation, Jacob struck a weary tone. (And right now, who can blame him?) “It came from a sense of frustration with, well, everything,” he said. “The bad news doesn’t stop, but at the same time, it felt like it would probably be dishonest not to make this collection this way.” By that, one assumes, Jacob means with an acknowledgment of the almighty mess we find ourselves in, and figuring out how his clothing can and should respond to it. Political and cultural commentary and the materialistic game of fashion don’t always make for the easiest of bed fellows, but that’s not to say that you shouldn’t try—that’s something in which Jacob firmly believes.
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