Fashion may not always be about comfort, but Germany’s Boehringer Ingelheim is taking discomfort to a new level with its latest "unwearable" fashion design.
First launched in April 2022, the company’s so-called “Unwearable Collection” enlisted Dutch artist Bart Hess, who designed Lady Gaga’s “slime dress” for her "Born This Way" album shoot, to create an unusual campaign centerpiece: a ghastly clothing line that nobody would ever want to wear.
Hess created four eight-foot-tall mannequins, with one encased in jagged shards of broken glass, to illustrate the pain and isolation that patients with generalized pustular psoriasis (GPP) experience.
This rare skin disease is characterized by flares which appear suddenly in the form of painful, pus-filled blisters over large areas of the body, a condition for which Boehringer markets its antibody drug Spevigo in the U.S., nabbing an FDA approval last fall.
Now, Boehringer is taking to the macabre catwalk again but with new designs from Hess and the Fashion Institute of Technology’s (FIT's) DTech Lab to add a new, fifth piece to the collection.
Designed by FIT students in partnership with Hess, this new piece, called “Trapped by Uncertainty,” “brings to life one of the most common experiences of people with GPP, who cite the uncertainty of how it will impact their life each day, or how others will perceive them,” according to a release.
The new piece combines unwearable elements, such as shards of glass and crystals, with materials used in everyday fashion design.
The outer layer of the design uses materials like tulle and mesh that have been manipulated to appear as smoke billowing around the individual to represent the feeling of uncertainty that many people with GPP experience between flares.
“The placement of colorful glass on the hands, face and body represent the beauty and individuality of people living with this rare disease,” the group said in the release.
“Since its introduction last year, The Unwearable Collection has helped to raise much-needed awareness for GPP. With the addition of Trapped by Uncertainty, we hope to improve the understanding of what life with GPP feels like and illustrate the intense emotional burden it can have,” Claudia Beqaj, executive director, dermatology, sales and marketing at Boehringer, said in the release.
“With the help of Bart Hess, the students and faculty of the FIT DTech Lab have done an incredible job of bringing the anxiety and uncertainty of GPP to life through fashion and design.”
All five looks of "The Unwearable Collection" will be on display inside FIT’s Art and Design Gallery later this year.