Albert Kriemler has long talked up his St. Gallen home base. Its legacy as the small Swiss city once responsible for 50% of the world’s embroideries has always been apparent at the level of the cloth at Akris. And yet Kriemler tends to look outward, collaborating with an international array of artists to reproduce their work as seasonal prints and embroideries.
In this year of lockdown he turned inward instead, creating map prints, a subtle logo embroidery, and sturdier-than-usual clothes designed less with the runway in mind than a restorative walk in Dreilinden, where a meandering nature path offers vistas of the town. Anton Corbijn shot the collection video there after one of the heaviest snowfalls in years, and the look book images were taken at the exquisite Abbey Library of St. Gallen, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Who needs Paris? This was an energized outing from Kriemler, rooted in practicality but still luxurious. Playing the key role was outerwear, the highlight of which was a coat of wool-on-tulle embroidery in a geometric tile motif combining tones of terra-cotta, forest green, ivory, and black. In shades of blue, the same tile embroidery formed the top layer of a double-layer jacket, its three-in-one nature adding versatility to its virtues. Coats are likely to be important investments as we reemerge, both for their utility and statement-making properties.
Via Zoom, Kriemler pulled a St. Gallen map-print blouson jacket off the rack and pointed to the Akris studio, his high school, and even—“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” he said—his kindergarten. The sepia-tone map that he used for a pretty midi-length shirtdress is antique and old enough to predate the formation of the Akris studio. It’s not a trip to the Alps, but for grounded clients of the brand it would make for a fun, collectible substitute.
