Montagehalle Berlin: Fashion Made in Wedding

‘Mon­ta­ge­hal­le’ is a fri­end­ly place – tidy but cosy. The­re are rough, white walls; a shelf with artis­tic gra­phics. Colourful scar­ves and Jer­sey-strings in almost any colour of the rain­bow: the famous ‘Früh­lings­röll­chen’, or ‘litt­le spring rolls’. The name ‘Mon­ta­ge­hal­le Ber­lin’ is the name of both the label of Annet­te Hauß­knecht and Suse Stock and of their shop in Togo­stra­ße 79. The shop ser­ves as pro­duc­tion and sales faci­li­ty – a crea­ti­ve workshop.

Wedding in a white gown

“Gowns, that’s how it all star­ted for me. Han­dy clo­thes with pockets for all sorts of things”, explains Suse Stock, who stu­di­ed fashion design. Her tail­o­red gowns, howe­ver, are much more than just a han­dy pie­ce of clot­hing: They exist in den­im or silk, spor­ty and fashionable. Even old sur­gery coats are used and com­ple­te­ly chan­ged. “Their mate­ri­al is extre­me­ly soft, becau­se it has been washed mil­li­ons of times”, says Suse.

She pro­ved her con­vic­tion of her busi­ness idea by get­ting mar­ried in one of her pie­ces: “I wore a white silk gown for my wed­ding. As a joke, I stit­ched a litt­le green tar­get with an arrow on it. My hus­band had the same on his suit.”

“We don’t try to change each other”

Annet­te Hauß­knecht, who stu­di­ed archi­tec­tu­re and ended up in fashion by chan­ce, explains that each of them pro­du­ces their own items. Their styl­es of working are very dif­fe­rent: “Suse draws what she wants to crea­te and then picks the mate­ri­al. I do it the other way round – I start with mate­ri­al, and then I think about what to do with it.” This is how she crea­tes uni­que clo­thes which bear her hand­wri­ting. “Bal­loon skirts are a spe­cia­li­ty of mine”, says Anne Hauß­knecht. Suse Stock adds: “We inspi­re each other and learn from one ano­ther. But we don’t try to chan­ge each other, we just stay as we are.” Sin­ce this works real­ly well, they also have a joint fashion label.

A spe­cial con­nec­tion bet­ween the two is their love for the raw mate­ri­al they use. Often, they go tog­e­ther to find the per­fect mate­ri­al, and then crea­te their clo­thes in their own spe­cial way: Sel­ved­ges are used as deco­ra­ti­on, test prints from the begin­ning of a roll of cloth crea­te T‑shirts with clear gra­phic patterns.

“We deci­ded to open our store in Wed­ding deli­bera­te­ly, to impro­ve this area. We live here, so we want to work here, too”, says Annet­te Hauß­knecht. The two of them know that their shop is uni­que in Wed­ding. “First, I was sho­cked when peo­p­le did not belie­ve in us – when they came insi­de and explai­ned their doubts in their some­ti­mes rough Ber­lin way.”, Annet­te remem­bers. Now, things are dif­fe­rent: Peo­p­le know and reco­g­ni­se them.

High quality, unique

From the out­side, ‘Mon­ta­ge­hal­le Ber­lin’ looks exclu­si­ve, almost mini­ma­li­stic. Suse’s and Annette’s clo­thes are defi­ni­te­ly high qua­li­ty, but not expen­si­ve – they offer tail­o­red women’s clo­thes for a fair ‘Wed­ding’ pri­ce. Chan­ges to the clo­thes are (almost) always possible.

It is abso­lut­e­ly worth to have a look around: The cent­re of ‘Mon­ta­ge­hal­le’ is a big table, ser­ving as working space, kid’s area and con­sul­ta­ti­on office. Annet­te says: “I am abso­lut­e­ly con­vin­ced by what Suse does and she thinks the same about my work. We put so much pas­si­on in this work that we’­re real­ly hap­py when cus­to­mers come deli­bera­te­ly to our shop.”

Mon­ta­ge­hal­le Ber­lin, Togo­stra­ße 79a, 13351 Berlin-Wedding

Ope­ning hours: Mon, Thu, Fri 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Tue 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

Trans­la­ti­on: Danie­la Hombach

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