Vice Style

Proportion are Alexandra Heckel and Frederic Krehl, a young couple with their own label of purposefully directional cuts in basic colors (mainly black and white). Their clothes lie somewhere between the sort of things you see on Danish fashion blogs and the stylish basics you dream you'll find in H&M. They do both men's and women's wear, although really everything is unisex, which, according to them, is also a symbol for the anonymity of the label. We're just really glad that someone still dares to do high fashion that is really cheap! We decided to interview them (even though their store has only been online for a week) to find out more about their clothes.

Vice: When did you start with Proportion?
Frederic: Well, we're online for a week now, so it's really, really fresh. But we started, like, half a year ago. It took forever!

According to the clichés, I presume that Alex does the designs and you deal with the business side of the whole thing?
Yeah, I'm studying economics, so that's more my side of things anyway, and Alex is more responsible for the creative part. She's a stylist, so she knows what she's doing. We never strictly separated those different working fields—we do everything together.

Cute. Did either of you actually study fashion design?
No, we didn't. I can tell you how we designed this collection. We just made drawings of how we wanted the end products to look, then we spoke to tailors and let them produce some samples. They showed us what they did and then we made changes until we were happy. So we don't do any pattern cutting or anything ourselves.

Every item in your collection is incredibly cheap. I mean, in comparison to what other young designers would ask for an oversize black t-shirt. How do you manage that?
Well, we just don't have that many costs. We don't have a shop where we have to pay 2000 euros rent a month, we don't print lookbooks or do big productions. Plus, we're not famous designers or some C-list celebrities; we don't want to elevate ourselves as amazing designers. It's really about the clothes, and they're just not that expensive to make.

Makes sense. The "About us" statement on your site reads: "Individualismus now!" and the production is very limited. Why is that?
Well, on one hand we offer good fabrics and good cuts, but we don't want to be "off the rack", you know. We want our clients to be sure that we won't reproduce the stuff, so that they won't see the same garment on the street the next day.

Yeah, that's always a bummer when that happens. What's the deal with the funny product names? Do they have any particular meaning?
Oh, you mean Friedhelm and Eberhard and that? Yeah, most of them are names from our families. But with no particular meaning. We just thought it would be funny to have those old German names.

Talking about Germany, you guys are based in Cologne?
Yes, I live in Cologne and Alex lives in Berlin, so we both go back and forth a bit. But we started the label in Cologne—it was easier somehow. I really think that Berliners want to wear better clothes and dress more uniquely than the people in Cologne, who are a bit more reserved. But, in general, people in both cities get fashion.

Has that reserved nature influenced the designs? I'm thinking of the dark colors and the simple cuts.
No, that's just our taste. The logo and the website are completely built up in black and white, dark and light. I feel like it brings a certain calmness with black clothes—a kind of quietness, but at the same time beautiful.

So would you like to open up a real store one day? Or is it your purpose to be some kind of new-generation online-only store?
Well, we'll see about that I guess. I mean, we really just started out and there's already enough to do. We never even thought it would go so fast and we'd be interviewed on an English language website within a week.

Ha. Well, here you go! Maybe soon you'll have a lot of English and Swedish costumers who don't speak a word of German.
Oh God, yes. We'll have to translate the website. Great.

TEXT: NINA BYTTEBIER
PHOTOS: CHRISTOPH VOY