German fashion label calls for ceasefire during Paris catwalk

German fashion label GmbH began and ended its Paris catwalk with a call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Founders, Benjamin Huseby and Serhat Isik, gave a speech before the showcasing their Winter/Spring 2024 collection called Untitled Nations highlighting that through their work they drew light on the fact that as “children of Muslim immigrants in Europe are not terrorists”.

 

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Isik added: “The demonisation of Muslims … has brought disproportionate attention to how Muslims look. But it is the centuries of dehumanisation, Orientalist tropes that have led us to the deadliest of suffering.”

Huseby said they are not “afraid” of being political. “We are interested in the political and formal possibilities of fashion as a medium of intercultural exchange,” he explained.

“We have had many sleepless nights after witnessing the most violent, nightmarish images we have ever seen, which are for the first time being live streamed on our phones,” and as a result, they have been protesting, taking part in meetings and calling for a ceasefire.

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“We have called for a ceasefire now, the release of all hostages and a ceasefire now, a free Palestine and an end to the occupation. All demands, we think, should be uncontroversial.”

Outlining the rise of the far-right in Europe and rising Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, Isik asked: “How convenient then to distract us, to make us believe there is really a struggle between two already marginalised people, when in fact the struggle is between power and justice. Exclusionary nationalism and true universal humanity. Oppression and freedom.”

GmbH is a German fashion brand and collective founded in 2016 by Isik and Huseby. Isik is Turkish and German, while Huseby is Norwegian and Pakistani, and their origins are frequently referenced in their environmentally conscious clothes.