Katharina KEMMLER

What was your very first job? What does it feel like to look back at it now? 

 In university I studied philosophy and my professors had encouraged me to continue on to do a PhD, but I was young and craving adventure in the real world!  Given that fashion was my greatest passion, I shocked them all and took up a job as a sales manager at a then-tiny streetwear trade show in Berlin called Bread & Butter. I loved the job - traveling to Paris, London, Milan, New York. It was the early 2000s, luxury streetwear was on the rise and I wanted the international fashion elite to come and experience this city. I don’t know with what trick I managed to convince Givenchy to be part of it, but that was definitely a highlight!

Please describe, in your own words, what your current job is and what work it entails.

My job profile has changed quite a bit since we started the company. For the first three years I was the Creative Director for each campaign. It was great fun, but as the company grew we had to expand and hire more creatives to tackle the growing amount of work. Also, there were changes in my private life. I fell in love with a gentleman from the finance industry, moved from Berlin to Luxembourg and became the mother of an adorable little girl. So my involvement with the company needed to be completely re-structured. Today I am still involved in the creative side of things, but more in terms of building the Kemmler Kemmler brand up as a respected cultural force in itself. We are currently in the process of starting an internal publishing department and are finding new ways to work with our exciting roster of creative friends, partners and contacts.

How did you discover that the creative world is right for you? Was there a time in your life that you credit to this discovery? Which train of events did bring you to where you are today?

I always loved fashion, so by the age of six I already knew I wanted to work in that industry. The only problem was that I had “two left hands”, as they say in German. I’m not the practical type, so fashion design was not for me and for quite some time I didn’t know how I could turn my interest into a career. All I knew was that I loved it and I devoured fashion magazines – especially the ones coming from London at that time in the ’90s. Eventually, instead of studying fashion I studied philosophy, and that helped me develop the skills of communication. Today I’m hugely grateful that I can combine those two worlds and the two sides of my life by creating a means of communication within the fashion industry.

In your constantly growing and expanding industry, how and where do you usually find inspiration to keep your work fresh, innovative and relevant?

There are two fields of inspiration for me: there is the thriving world of the fashion industry itself, which is ever changing and producing new and interesting expressions of what society is driven by. Things like discussions about gender, new awakenings in politics, a craving for physical craftsmanship in the digital age etc. Then there is the world of thought and academia that I find equally inspiring and brings a whole fresh perspective to things. At the moment I am much fascinated by the female mystics of the medieval époque.

If you had to pick one piece of work or project that you are most proud of, especially for the creative work and innovation it required rather than its recognition or industry success, what would it be 

I love the denim campaign we did for the sustainable fashion brand ARMEDANGELS, “Touch Nothing Toxic“. Instead of moralizing the issue or focusing on the overwhelming task of “saving the environment” we drew attention to the personal health benefits of wearing clothing that doesn’t involve harmful chemicals in the production process. We communicated this by contrasting beautiful images of un-retouched nude skin with harsh imagery of toxic chemicals and polluted water. The imagery had this powerful vulnerability and delicacy to it that made the whole issue feel very intimate. It was also super successful at selling the jeans, which was a nice plus!