GmbH
GmbH is a Berlin-based family that’s creating a huge phenomenon made through revolution and feelings. Their collections are crafted through a dead stock-recycling approach, futuristic wishes and aware minds. The aim of Benjamin and Serhat, the founders of the collective brand, is to be relatable, put people together and, eventually, change the world. A community born on Berlin’s dancefloors that became a global brand, ready to spread their emotions and ideas through people. Within GmbH, you’re going to find a collection of different people that are the mirror of our society, a society made of unique individuals getting together in order to demon- strate how important it’s to share, look at each other and fuse into a group of forces.
You met most of the people you work with through the techno scene in Berlin. As soon as I read it, I recalled quite a lot of other talents that, through time, have met and joined together in the same way. Somehow, I imme- diately made a link with a rave motto that said: ‘Spread your empathy’. You seem to be very empathic within your point of view and working process, what does empathy mean to you?
Empathy is so important to us. Everything we do started from this connection. Both of us went into this because, in the first place, we wanted something that we didn’t have while growing up. We felt like we hadn’t found something that necessarily represented us. Everything we do is a sort of tool or medium through which we coltivate things, like representation and passion. It goes alongside with empathy as well. If we weren’t able to empathize with every single step we were taking, we wouldn’t even do it. It’s the starting point, but it’s also hard to put fashion and empathy togeth- er. The most genuine way to connect those things together is by finding a way that people and us can relate to.
Speaking of rave mottos, I’d hence say that ‘Take Care of Your Dogs’ could fit as well. Somehow, this sort of consciousness and affection, let’s call it entertainment, reminds me of the thoughts behind your collections, the dead stock-recycling approach and the whole political and sociological connection. Quite often we take it for granted, but how important is it to take care of some- thing?
Our brand is based on our personal stories. We have to come forward with our personal path and the things we experienced when we were younger. We talked a lot about big issues like immigration, homophobia and growing up as immigrant children, so in that sense you have to take care of yourself in order to turn everything into something beautiful. Self-care or care for what we’re doing and who’s around us, embodying everything. We take what we do very seriously, because it’s soulful and deeply related to our spirit and hearts.
Many times, within your work, you mentioned distant references in time, although you specified that the garments and the whole GmbH approach don’t have any kind of nostalgia about them. Sometimes, nostalgia is an easy escape tactic to avoid not facing challenges, reality matters or just being uselessly critical. On the other hand, some of us recognize the value of examples that belong to the past, but we’re projected towards the future despite the tons of wild cards we have to face. As individuals, are you truly not nostalgic at all?
Of course, as individuals, memories are important. They have a touch of romanticism that can be inspiring too. However, the story we create, how we work with garments is very much linked with thinking about the present and future. Of course, our personal memories are relevant and pay an important role in the process. Somehow, they’re a part of it. Thinking about nostalgia as a way of acting, as well as something linked to a precise historical moment, trying to relive it isn’t so interesting. Our goal is to move forward in order to change the world we’re living in. I think our interpretation of past references isn’t nostalgic at all, but projected towards changes and evolutions.
Sometimes, I think today’s youth suffers from a lack of braveness, especially in terms of affection, love and respect towards human beings. The fact that you want to build a family more than anything else is something that really moves me, because it’s linked to the braveness that I was mentioning before. People today seem to be scared or, probably, just too lazy to love. How deeply are that love and braveness connected?
Well, you’ve got to be brave to love and love to be brave. The bravery that’s connected with what we’re doing is something that we definitely have to deal with, because we have to be brave in order to create what we eventually do at the end of the day, both on a technical and effective point of view. It’s fundamental for us, since we deeply love what we’re into. If we didn’t have this kind of stubborn approach in creating something groundbreaking, or this loving atti- tude in supporting the community and family we live in, we wouldn’t be achieving the point of GmbH totally.
In the beginning, any change seems to be the most exciting or scariest thing ever. Do you recall any good or bad change that, in the end, turned out to be the best thing that you could have ever done?
Starting GmbH was a huge change, we didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into. It was challenging and a true revolution, since we both had different jobs before. It wasn’t an easy transition. However, it was something that led us to a new stage in life and, if we look at where we’re today, the struggles and challenges faced have been absolutely worth it.
Fashion, intended as a word that describes a system, used to be quite linked to the idea of a dream. For instance, I think about all the aesthetic revolutions that many designers have made, in the past century, through garments. Today, I think it would probably be more relevant to be concrete in fashion and dreamy in the style and image. Speaking of aesthetics, what or who makes you dream?
An old dignified eastern man going down the streets in his beautiful coat. That could be already enough to trigger our memories. It’s very much about clothing that have a certain memory or wish about them, that can be elevated into high fashion. That always is something that we kind of aspire to.
Nowadays, we’re living in an ultra quick lifestyle. It’s ironic, because sometimes I feel like I’m living on a con- stant fast track and, then, I realize that, actually, all the battles that we have to face, the bureaucracy and all the things that we want to reach in terms of personal goals are so slow. I guess that we have to understand which is the right pace in between. Referring to your personal attitude, which could be the right rhythm to follow in this crazy fast and slow track?
We realized we were a global brand and, of course, there’s so much bureaucracy to be followed. So, basically, we understood that we need a precise and personal pace in order to not turn into a supernova, that goes up so quickly and then disappears. We’re pretty much aware of our personal pace as human beings. Linked to GmbH too, we even know how much we’d love to grow, and consequently which kind of rhythm we have to maintain. So, probably, being able to grow up organically at an healthy pace would be the right balance in between.
You said that you check the wearability of your clothes by testing them through friends. I’m pretty curious to know which was the smartest or funniest criticism you’ve ever received?
A lot of people in our circle wear our clothes and, for us, it signifies a stamp of approval indicating we’re speaking to the right audience. We do private orderings with our friends after the shows, we gather together into a sort of small event. It’s always interesting, because you have so many different bodies trying on the collection. Actually, that moment is the greatest criticism for us, since we’re trying to enhance the body and give that sense of strength. It’s the best and funniest criticism at the same time, because everyone is trying our garments on, everyone is excited and it’s such an intense moment every time. It’s definitely the most useful and appreciated review that we’ve ever re- ceived. It’s tangible, it’s concrete, it’s so GmbH.
COMA COSE
Working together is such a weapon and privilege in today’s world. To be able to have two personas within one is even more powerful. Coma_Cose is a Milan-based music duo that’s deeply connected with realness, struggles, love and visions. Their universe is peculiar and tangible, constantly following the spirit of the moment, their need of expression and change. Within their music and visuals, they’re forging a unique and strong impact in the sound industry and communication. The city they live in is the starting point of their journey, with all the controversies and charm that streets infuse to people in their everyday life. A common approach with images, working together as one as they both compose the lyrics.
It’s a fact that you’re quite linked with Milan. Both of you came to the city in order to find something. Milan is an escapism for many people and, like every place, has its pros and cons. What does Milan represent to you?
Fausto: Both of us were born in provincial realities. I grew up in Salò, by the Garda lake, whereas Francesca in Porde- none, quite a big village I’d say. We arrived here ten years ago, so we know the city really well, since we’ve even moved to many different areas in the past years. It’s definitely both an escapism and a dreamy destination: many people choose Milan because they’re looking for fortune. I chose Milan in order to follow music and I happily did it, although it had its ups and downs. For sure, after a while, Milan – like every other city on the planet – sounds quite repetitive: as soon as something becomes a routine, it logically shines a bit less. However, concerning Italy, Milan is one of the most active places to live. We often question ourselves about what we’ll do in the future, what we’re going to talk about. We’ve also contemplated the possibility to change and start afresh.
To be honest with you, moving would be a bit frustrating, because Milan offers the same chances and landscapes as many other cosmopolitan cities do. Probably, if we’d ever move somewhere else, we’d go for a completely different place. Your way of working is definitely independent. I’ve noticed that you work first-hand over the creative and artistic direction for what concerns the music videos and your personal image. Is it a choice?
Francesca: More than a choice, it’s a need. As to the videos, many aspects are curated by Fausto, I’m probably more of a consultant.
Fausto: Well, it’s not exactly like that. I’m the pragmatic side of the duo, she’s more creative than I am. We work together over the ideas we have in order to find our balance.
So, you basically team up...
Fausto: Definitely! However, we personally take care of our songs’ visual translation, because we like it and really have fun in doing so. Coma_Cose started as a deeply-rooted need to express our own creativity, so I think it’s also more coherent if the band itself creates the image of the project.
Francesca: I think the audience recognizes our signature in that. I’ve noticed that, sometimes, a work curated by many different minds can loose the right amalgam to be unique and authentic.
Fausto: You know what, there’s another big truth about Milan: generally speaking, the people involved in high-level creative projects are more or less always the same. Hence, it’s pretty easy to uniform and standardize the result if you work with the same team.
Do you adopt the same approach for the lyrics too?
Francesca: Each one has its own notebook and, at a certain point, we put together our streams. The key is probably still linked with our dualism and the balance that we’re looking for. A way in between unregulated creativity and pragma- tism.
Fausto: I’m probably more into the technical side of it but, if we weren’t together, I’d have never done anything like that. Francesca is pure inspiration and creativity to me, I’m the final barycenter. What matters isn’t who did what, but how the process took place. Since we’re a couple in life, we share everything: we live the same situations, so our approach is simultaneous.
While I was listening to your songs, a word came up in my mind: ‘immediacy’. Within your lyrics, I felt as if many different images were put together to describe everyone’s life. Today it’s really rife to write through images, especially referred to artists with a young audience. Those quick images remind me of the endless Instagram’s scroll. Do you agree with this connection?
Francesca: Sadly, it’s true that, nowadays, we all have a shorter attention span, so immediacy is absolutely required. You always have to put a spin in the beginning, then change gear and images many times, in order to move from a world to another. It’s the description of our super quick reality and, probably, today an entire story for a song would sound difficult to the ears.
Fausto: Together with immediacy, I’d add the word ‘synthesis’. I’ve noticed that many things sound redundant and superfluous, because of the environment we live in. For sure, this new direction is a child of its time and it has something negative about it, because it’s a sort of consequence of the infinite media strain we’re stuck into. However, if you think about it, the singer-songwriter, for its own definition, describes what surrounds him or her. So, it’s probably fair to be absorbed by the contemporary zapping culture.
What about the eternal anthems? If I think about the endless Italian culture of writers and singers ranging from classical to pop music, to the old school of the hip hop culture of the 90’s, all of them used to tell a whole story in every song. Do think we have lost that approach completely?
Fausto: Well, some songs are going to be eternal, although they don’t precisely describe the time you’re living in. Probably, it’s just a change of a new leaf and deconstruction of what already existed. I would say that, personally, it’s a matter of respect too. If I recall songs like ‘Sara’ by Antonello Venditti, that one tells the story of this young pregnant girl, I can feel and live that beauty like if I were there. It’s so amazing and poetic and probably, in order to do something like that, you need an inspiration that for sure belongs to that historical period and not the one we’re facing.
Regarding ‘Inverno Ticinese’ (in English, ‘Ticinese Win- ter’), I really appreciate the Prozac+ quote - for sure, a reference that marked many people in their thirties today. If you look back to the adolescence period, which bands or singers really impressed you?
Fausto: We mentioned Prozac+ in an ironic way as if they were a couple, they’re from Pordenone like Francesca is. It’s difficult to pick up names, because the list would be quite a long one. For sure, the records that I listened to as a teenager and the group that gave me a feeling of being a part of something was Sangue Misto. Alongside, I could mention Verdena as well, or the Milanese rap scene, with artists like Bassi Maestro or the whole collective of Area Cronica Entertainment.
Francesca: It’s pretty difficult for me too. I totally agree with the importance of Sangue Misto. However, as to myself, I’ve been way more influenced by singer-songwriters that I used to hear in my childhood because of my parents. I recognize how deeply they influenced me, although I was just a kid.
About your album ‘Hype Aura’, I’d like to start from the end, so from ‘INTRO’. First of all, I really like the name and order choice, it reminds me of some foreign book editions that have the index at the end of the book. Regarding the index of those books, I’ve never understood whether I’m fascinated or annoyed by this peculiarity, however I think the power of your choice stands exactly there. It creates an allure. This allure made, in my mind, a connection with the halo, something untouchable, a sort of flair that outlives people and concrete things. To me, it’s something that makes things and people unforgettable. Did this ‘Aura’ scare you?
Francesca: When working on ‘Hype Aura’, fear was something positive. We were facing something new, a new journey and you don’t know where it will lead you to, how long it will last and how it will be. You start to question yourself about things like: ‘Am I going to be able to follow everything? Am I going to loose something over the way?’. We still have this fear, it’s normal I guess, but it’s a feeling that constantly pushes us forward and forward.
Fausto: It’s the desire to get in the game, that healthy fear of the unknown is the fuel of the entire thing.
And what about the word ‘Hype’? If you think about it, it has a huge expire date attached on it, because of its technical meaning.
Fausto: For sure! To be honest with you, the young jargon is always something that makes me shiver a bit and hype, as a word and mood, belongs to it. It’s a word that, somehow, has survived and it’s living a second youth now. Obviously, the play on words just worked (‘Hype Aura’ to be read in Italian also as ‘Hai Paura’, that stands for ‘You are scared’ / ‘Are you scared?’) everything made sense, but most of all, there’s a big irony in it. To define yourself as ‘hyped’ would be megalomaniacal. However, we have to recognize that something happened, since in two years we passed from concerts with an audience made of five people up to shows with thousands of attendees. The hype thing is more referred to the phenomenon side of the game rather than our ego.
Francesca: We aren’t so aware of what’s happening. It’s a path from the inside, and it isn’t so easy to catch and realize it, at least for us. In order to do so, someone should probably catapult us into a parallel universe called ‘Success’ and let us understand the meaning of it (Laughs, E.D.). I don’t know, I’m honest when I say that, for us, it’s a inner growth, both on a personal and professional level, and what’s happening is amazing.
I found a lot of intimacy and love as a topic within the latest album, as well as a sort of reaction. For instance, when you say: ‘Per affrontare la rabbia bisogna avere una tattica. Qualcosa c’è volato via, via dalla gabbia toracica, rimane un osso di seppia per affilare la bocca. Sai capita’ (in English, ‘To face anger you need a tactic. Something flew away, away from our chest, a cuttlebone remains to hone the mouth. You know, it happens’. From ‘Via Gola’ - ‘Hype Aura’). Where did this reaction come from?
Fausto: For sure, within our project, there’s a lot of retaliation. One of the reasons has to do with the 90’s stereotype of the imaginary enemy. Our enemy isn’t a rapper, but life itself. We are adults who went on an expiation path. We were facing a tough moment made of illusions, disillusions, struggling, both in our friendships and career. Hence, a bit of anger is within us. It’s an anger towards the world, the society we live in, the alienation, basically towards all the things that tarnished us inside. So, our anger is deeply linked with our fears too, being afraid of the unknown. For sure, this anger is slowly fading away, because things are settling down and we’re doing something that’s leading us to express ourselves completely. It’s such a luck. However, from the inside, I think we’ll always have a sort of bad tooth. For now, we’ll look for other reasons to be in anger (Laughs, E.D.), because there isn’t any room for complacency. Anger is a strong engine and noble sentiment.
No worries, there’s always a reason to be upset.
Francesca: That’s for sure!
So, probably that’s one of the reasons why, within your lyrics, there’s a deep touch of awareness. There’s a line in ‘A LAMETTA’ - ‘HYPE AURA’ that made me kinetically smile: ‘Laurearsi in problemi e regalare i confetti’ (in English, ‘Graduating in issues and offering confetti’). I was wondering which type of confetti you’re talking about: are they extremely good or are they going to crack open your teeth?
Francesca: Well, it’s pretty much a mix of them both, you’ll never know which one you’ll pick up. Life is like that, while you’re indulging over something sweet, there’s always a rotten confetti waiting around the corner.
In the same song, you say: ‘Andare ai concetti, capire i concerti’ (in English,‘Go to the point, get the concerts’). I’d like to ask you what you’re learning from your gigs.
Francesca: While you’re doing a performance, it’s always difficult, or better, we always live the day after in a hefty way. It’s a little bit like the success issue: sometimes, you feel like you’d like to see yourself from the outside in order to feel what the audience gets. You get on the stage, you give out all of yourself and, then, you feel depleted as soon as you get off. For sure we recognize an evolution, we made a quick and intense path. Now, people sing a lot and it’s something that makes us feel so good.
Fausto: I truly believe that every singer, even the most trans- parent ones, always wears a mask on the stage somehow. Since we’re a couple in life, we can’t do that at all. Quite often, a few hours before a show, we’re at home drinking tea and eating biscuits in our living room. It’s weird, because we can’t put that mask on since we’re two and, due to the fact that we’re always together, we can’t live a sort of transfiguration. Somehow, we share a little bit of our intimacy and, sometimes, we feel a little violated too. However we’re happy, because you can’t feel any kind of loneliness. If you think about it, another strong weapon like anger is loneliness and the moment when you get it out. When we try to shout our feelings to the world, it’s like a call: who knows if someone is going to feel the same, accept the invite and want to know something more, joining us. That’s the meaning of a gig for us.
There’s always been a deep link between aesthetics, music, style and fashion. We’re living the result of a revolution that started more or less in 2015. Within fashion, that was the riot starting point of Alessandro Michele at Gucci, the mainstream boom of streetwear and activewear and the consequent opening of high fashion towards it. Something similar happened in Italy within the independent music panorama. I recall, for instance, the two huge phenomenons of the indie and trap music. It’s a huge change, it’s like if a wick triggered new waves and created deep connections.
Fausto: Style and music have always walked so close. For instance, Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren for the punk scene, David Bowie and his genius, Lucio Dalla and his unique attitude and way of being, and the list could be endless. I truly think the change that you’ve just described is such a good thing, and great opening. After a sort of estab- lishment moment for fashion as an exclusive system, a wish for something new upraised. I see it as a need for new roads and languages. It’s obvious that everything is cyclical and it’s going to end at a certain point too. However, if I have to be honest with you, even by talking with other colleagues, most of us are quite bored by this style, because it isn’t new anymore. When we go through Instagram, we’re quite sick of it. Everything looks the same and if you crave for creativity, you’re going to naturally look for something new somewhere else. For sure, something is happening. People who produce contents, rather than just being viewers, are for sure as sick as we’re, that’s tangible. Everybody knows that and we’re just waiting for the right moment and, probably, a first new move, like the 2015’s one. I feel like we’re so close to it, so close to another change.