TREFFPUNKT

Treffpunkt blurs the lines between modern fashion and art exhibition.

Berlin-based fashion brand Treffpunkt serves as an example of European urban art-forms starting to seriously intersect with experimental visual art.

As it stands as of February 2020, Treffpunkt mostly features products that are not clothes, per se. Instead, the firm decides to treat its established brand identity as a bedrock for the creation of different and peculiar kinds of items.

From pillows to lighter cases to ashtrays to abstract sculptures à la Tatlin, Treffpunkt utilises aspects of its identity to create product that is less freely reproducible commodity, and more like an attempt at a unique artisan piece.

In fact, even the items that fall under the category of straight-up fashion, namely their t-shirts, coats, scarfs ecc. seem to have a catch to them.

The experimental aspect to these is clearly exposed in examining the t-shirts on demand: All of them are one of a kind vintage t-shirts that are then imprinted with a Treffpunkt graphic by being bleach screened. In other words, the shirts not only are literally one of a kind, but they present this attempt of synthesis between the brand’s identity and the shirt as a historical piece of its own value.

It may not be a coincidence that the meaning of the brand’s name is “point of meeting” (roughly speaking). 

Perhaps it is the case that the name is tracking this tendency of finding a path to translate the value of modern brand aesthetics with objects that have an intrinsic utility. The result of this approach is a company that when presenting its supply, strikes its consumers as being shown an auction of art exhibition pieces which just so happen to be wearable, and in our opinion, incredibly fashionable.