C-Neeon, Clara Kraetsch and Doreen Schulz's new art-based label out of Berlin, was the winner of the 2005 Hyères Festival, a prestigious Europe-wide young-designer competition. What they showed charmed and impressed the judges with the energy and integrity of its twenty-first century adherence to Bauhaus design principles—all bright hand-blocked prints and graphic shapes reimagined for today's street and club generation.
This season, C-Neeon accepted an invitation to present in London, a platform that, if not exactly rivaling the full klieg-lit fashion exposure of the Paris runway, at least provides a second-tier transitional space to set young designers on their way. Their collection—mostly asymmetric tops with block-colored and diagonally striped panels over roller-printed leggings and jeans—channeled the aesthetic of early German modernism without looking like an art history thesis. Taken apart, the T-shirtdresses, leggings, and hooded sweatshirts, stamped with bold teal, red, black, and cream graphics looked like commercial propositions. That's what London's Topshop, Britain's biggest youth retailer thinks, anyway. The company commissioned C-Neeon to design a mini-line.
