German Oak

So I just got back from 10 days in Berlin where I spent the entire time living blocks away from the German Oak, Temporary Showroom. Of course it took me eight days to figure this out, but that was fine since the euro was killer.

It was everything you would want an edgy shop in east Berlin to be: white walls, two plain racks, a giant chest-height table full of fashion magazines we pay $30 apiece here in the States, a dressing room consisting of a cordoned-off corner of the room with an old mirror against the wall.

Aside from the usual faves like Henrik Vibskov and Diana Orving, they featured a Berlin-based designer (group? collective? no idea, really) called Realitystudio. I am obsessed with their stuff (check it out here) and now the proud owner of this fabulous top, the Okto pullover, despite the sad, sad state of the dollar:

I was so, so, so, so tempted to buy the Question scarf, but then I remembered that making no money in dollars equals making even less euros. It was an endless scarf and absolutely amazing: one side knit cashmere, the other the softest jersey imaginable. It already had a twist in it so that by the time you looped it around your neck it had taken on this fabulous sculptural quality. I am still trying to convince myself that 59 euros is a bargain for something handmade (even a scarf!) in a former factory in former East Berlin....

And get this, their only retail outlet in the States is in Chicago! A disgrace. I'm calling Oak tomorrow and dropping off the lookbook (of course I snatched a couple...)

more on Berlin to come...