A graduate of Weißensee Academy of Arts, Laura Gerte is a designer who can always be counted on to provide a proper Berlin fashion event. After closing last fashion week with a techno-inspired collection, this season, in true Berlin form, she brought her guests to a vacant warehouse-turned-sometimes-club-sometimes-exhibition-space. The beginning and end of the concrete hallway were flanked by large digital screens that provided a live feed of the show as it unfolded. The result was an atmosphere of insularity and attention drawn to the idea of duality as attendees saw double in a black-clad, smoke-filled room.

Duality, or rather contradiction, was at the heart of Gerte’s Spring/Summer 2026 collection. Titled “Desire / Chaos”, her design choices came in unexpected pairs: skin-tight mesh around loose-fitting materials; withering flowers affixed to garments; a floor-length two-piece made from casual jersey material and a misworn white tee.

However, rather than detailed show notes explaining her decisions, the designer left guests with only an enigmatic list of words. Pleasure, impermanence, womanhood, desire, inevitability, beauty, anger and decay; these terms defined Gerte’s complicated and often contradictory range of emotions.

As such, the collection was not an intellectual one, but rather an instinctual one. Deconstructed, distressed, and falling off the figure, Gerte’s garments felt incidental, yet they understood the movement of the body by second nature. In their pseudo-nude gowns, sporty capris and even in structured canvas, the models oozed sex appeal, swanking down the runway to a pulsing club track.

Taking after the collection’s emotion-filled name, Gerte’s clothes felt reckless and primal, like they honoured instinct. Her trademark ruched fabric appeared in the form of a barely-there halter dress that snaked around the body of its wearer. Torso-bearing tie around tops were paired with dangerously low-waisted bottoms. The brand’s signature thick piping, patchwork prints and trompe l’oeil resurfaced as welcome embellishments.

As the show notes suggested, Gerte’s clothes were an ode to the complex, often intense sensations experienced as a woman. But instead of ruminations or questioning, the garments were expression in its purest form: raw and naturally flowing from the female body.