How these two millennial designers are breathing new life into a heritage brand

Design duo Benjamin Alexander Huseby and Serhat Işık have always been on the same page when it comes to their purpose in fashion. “We’re interested in storytelling,” says Işık. “We have the same values when it comes to understanding what fashion even is. For us, it has always been a tool for a greater purpose.” Having applied that ethos to their Berlin-based brand GmbH since 2016, they now have a much greater platform via which to weave their tales, as the co-creative directors of cult Italian fashion house Trussardi.

The two first met through mutual friends on a night out in Berlin seven years ago. Their shared love for art and experiences as brown, Muslim and queer creatives connected them immediately. Huseby, who is of Norwegian and Pakistani descent, had already established a career in fashion photography, shooting campaigns and editorials for the likes of Vogue, i-D and Harper’s Bazaar. He even shot the third cover of Vogue Scandinavia, starring rising Swedish model Malaika Holmén.

At the same time, Işık, who is Turkish and German, was part of an art collective named Bless, where he was exercising his talents for experimenting with textiles while designing menswear. “I would make objects out of textiles, like little life-sized cars among other things because I just loved creating art,” he recalls. “Then I founded my studio and continued doing my own fashion where the purpose was never to sell anything but more to tell a political story, which ultimately became the foundation for GmbH.”

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“I was always very much interested in fashion,” says Huseby. “I was obsessed with magazines growing up. I used to buy i-D and The Face all the time. And when I was around 13 or 14, I fell in love with photography so I would make my own fashion photo shoots with me, my sister and my friends. I would make clothes for them to wear and then shoot the whole thing.”

Huseby’s love for fashion stemmed from his upbringing among a family of art lovers. “I grew up in the countryside in Norway and it was the kind of environment where there wasn't much fashion or glamour around. My mom was very crafty and into art so she used to make a lot of my clothes, so that’s one aspect of how I was introduced to fashion,” he says. “I also loved drawing my own clothes and making clothes for Barbie dolls, it was all very cliche gay.”

Huseby’s artistic endeavours as a child later led him to graduate from Chelsea College of Art in London in 1997, before returning to Norway where he did an MA at the Royal Academy of Art in Oslo. “I loved art but my dad was also very much into Italian fashion. He was actually the first person who taught me about designer brands like Armani.” Though Huseby now designs for an Italian heritage brand, he tends to stick to his Scandinavian roots when it comes to dressing himself, emphasising an importance on practicality rather than style.

“Ironically, I don’t style myself that well. I would say my only tie to Scandinavian fashion is that I dress for the weather. There is a popular Scandinavian saying we use that translates in English as, ‘There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes’.” Similarly, Işık was always drawn to textiles. From the time he was four, long before he could “comprehend what pattern-cutting is,” he was doing crochet and knitting. “It was all around me,” he says. “My grandparents lived on a very traditional farm in Turkey and it's very much embedded in our culture to do artisanal hand work for weddings, or any kind of cultural event.”

With both their talents and values aligned, it didn’t take long for Huseby and Işık to join forces for the launch of GmbH. The brand has become renowned for representing multiculturalism as well as forming a community of activists, artists and free-thinkers, long before diversity and inclusion became the industry’s favourite buzzwords.

“When we did our first shows in Paris in 2017, the cast was almost entirely made up of black and brown people and it was definitely a statement,” says Huseby. “Afterwards, a really well-known fashion journalist called the casting ‘aggressive’ and people were asking us if we were uncomfortable or scared of being political, which we’ve never been.”

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Fashion and politics have always gone hand in hand for both Huseby and Işık. In fact, the ability to merge the two was the only appealing aspect of the industry for Işık, who was always far more concerned about the craftsmanship of design than the glamour attached to it. “I was never interested in fashion, to be honest. Not like Benjamin, at least. The lifestyle and the fame never fascinated me,” he admits, despite later studying fashion design at Weissensee Academy of Art in Berlin, where he completed his MA in menswear design.

In May 2021, Husbey and Işık were announced as the new creative directors of Trussardi as part of a wider objective to revive the classic brand with a fresh perspective rooted in inclusivity and an overall socio-political consciousness. “We chose Benjamin and Serhat for the revival of the maison, not only for their talent and creative vision, but also for their values of social responsibility –namely inclusiveness and diversity,” explains Trussardi CEO, Sebastian Suhl.

The duo’s debut collection for the heritage brand, founded in 1911 and historically known for its leather goods, was far removed from Trussardi’s traditional reputation. Launching at Milan Fashion Week last spring, they put on an autumn/winter 2022 runway show soundtracked by Lukas Heerich, of German industrial music pioneers Einstürzende Neubauten (which, seeing the duo’s knack for challenging the status quo, fittingly translates to ‘collapsing new buildings’).

The ecclesiastical designs were inspired by the mythology of fairytales as fables of Italian fashion, with rugged, embroidered piumino jackets, Medieval and Renaissance style mini dresses and gender-neutral coat-gown hybrids. The 40 looks showcased on the runway all followed a predominantly black colour palette to reinforce the strength of their silhouettes, according to Işık.

Presenting the collection both inside the Palazzo Trussardi and on the surrounding streets for all the public to enjoy, the show saw Trussardi return to its roots. “In the 1980s, Trussardi was a pioneer in creating an accessible and democratic lifestyle as seen in the multiple productions - from fashion shows to regular cultural events - staged for the Milanese public,” explains Suhl, adding that Huseby and Işık have brought back “this inclusive spirit”.

“We got the offer for this job and then we had to make a proposal of what we wanted to do and it just felt like the right time to explore such an exciting venture,” says Huseby. The journey thus far hasn’t been easy, particularly in targeting a new clientele, but the duo know what they’re doing. Their designs and values aim to straddle the line between inviting a fresh new customer and maintaining the brand’s lifestyle appeal by continuing their historic lifestyle and hospitality elements.

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“Trussardi is very special because it’s one of the brands that is reminiscent of the past but it's been forgotten for so long,” Işık adds. “A friend of ours once described it as one of the last ‘fallen angels’ of fashion. It just seemed a bit untouched and no one really knew which direction to take it in and that was very appealing to us.” That, paired with the idea of a new challenge, is what piqued the duo’s interest in taking the wheel for the brand’s renaissance.

“Our aim is to bring a whole new identity and a new vision to a brand that has a bit of an opaque history,” says Huseby, who admits that it isn’t easy to turn around the ethos and designs of an iconic heritage brand. “Our methodology for GmbH is very much the same in how we are approaching Trussardi in a conceptual way. It’s very much about us and what’s personal to us. With Trussardi, we’re looking at what the codes are for the brand and how we can subvert that with our vision, our values and our ideas of Milanese fashion and style.”

While they’re keen to make a change that sticks, both Huseby and Işık are aware of the ebb and flow of the fashion industry’s interest and commitment to actual, structural progressiveness when it comes to celebrating and implementing diversity. “There are moments where I feel like maybe there was a bit of a peak for diversity and now people think that everything is fine and that we don’t have to talk about it as much anymore,” says Huseby.

“It ’s exactly what we feared would happen,” Işık adds. “Sometimes I’m not sure about the reasons for our success. Is it really because people understand it or is it because it has become a trend? We’ve always been very conscious about contributing to the latter but we know where our heart is." The pair only does it because of their core values and beliefs. "A lot of brands like to jump on the bandwagon. That’s actually not a critique because we want them to take accountability, so they need to jump on this train, but a lot of the time, they don’t know what they’re doing.”

It’s no secret that socio-political events of the past two years have held a mirror up to the systemic racial landscape of many industries, including the fashion world. It’s led to a pledge of allegiance from a plethora of global brands who have vowed to take a stand against the lack of diversity within their companies – some more genuine than others.

“Behind closed doors there is a lot of front, and I know this because I have observed it in spaces I probably shouldn’t be in,” says Huseby. “A lot of people are throwing around buzzwords and reluctantly tapping into the movement even though they’re annoyed by it and don’t under stand it, simply because it has now become a trend and they want to stay in the game.”

Filtering this out and replacing it with intentional efforts is what Huseby and Işık hope to see for the future of fashion. “There was a point reached for me, where there was so much noise around this topic that we've helped bring to the forefront, that the only solution was to step back for a minute and just observe,” Işık explains. A change that has perhaps done more harm than good in some cases is the idea of cancel culture and the new standard on how to be politically correct in the industry.

“We’ve gotten to a point now that if you're not political, you actually may be cancelled. It has become an extreme version of what we’ve been trying to do as black and brown people,” says Işık. “And then on top of that it has been filtered down by so many additional layers that have diluted the core issue at hand.”

While they’re both interested to see what the future holds, they’re clear on one thing. “As corny as it sounds, the most important thing for us is to remember where we came from,” says Işık. “The desire to make change and create spaces for people like us has always been embedded in everything we do and why we started.” The pair want fashion to reach a point where space isn’t just made for the extraordinary people of colour “while white counterparts aren’t held to the same standard”. “Until that is achieved,” they declare. “We’re not done.”