For Gerrit Jacob, One Man's Kitsch is Another Man's Treasure
Within the first few minutes of meeting Gerrit Jacob in his work studio in West Berlin — a re-purposed bottom-floor apartment where bemused neighbors often enter unannounced to check out what's happening — he'd already admitted he probably wouldn't read this article I've written about him. And from that moment on, practically no topic was off the cards.
With walls covered in research pictures and old collections alongside hand-written messages (one reads "is it hot?" while another says "fuck ya'll" beside a photo of a wad of cash), we're perched on top of a windowsill-turned-sitting spot in the main room of his studio.
The designer's refreshingly comfortable speaking on subjects that many wouldn't dare to on the record, calling out pockets of the industry for not really caring for his sustainability measures and giving the full lowdown on his financial worries — something that comes up regularly in conversation.
"The biggest challenge is cash flow. It's like my daily struggle to make sure there's enough money in the bank to pay the bills," the brand founder says at one point, rounding off our conversation with: "Everybody's purses are closed right now and it's really hard to break through that. Prices are rising... it's important to mention this because it's one of the defining dynamics of my day-to-day life."
He founded his eponymous brand last year, with a bachelor's and master's degree from Central Saint Martins under his belt as well as stints at Martine Rose, Balenciaga, and Gucci, and is feeling the full pinch of what it's like to be a fledgling independent designer.
But despite the brand's infancy, it has managed to build up a long list of high-profile admirers. To mention a few: A$AP Rocky recently commissioned a custom two-piece with a photo of him and the family airbrushed on, Rosalía has posted a picture on Instagram wearing a matching jacket and trousers, and Burna Boy took to the stage at the NBA All-Star Halftime Show wearing full leather by Gerrit Jacob — celebrity connections that he humbly plays down when I mention them.
Never lacking in color, airbrushed leather jackets and trousers are his specialty and are the items that have proven most popular amongst celebrities. His airbrushed graphic style is unmistakable and makes up an "unhinged neon universe," depicting everything from sharp-toothed animals to bowling pins being knocked over.
His first experiments with airbrushing were for a suit in his MA collection, where he managed to find an artist who sprays fairground rides online and got him to paint the graphics. "The first time I saw that suit was the first time after seven years of working and studying where something that I saw in front of me really truly felt like myself," says the designer.
Initially inspired by the spectacularly over-the-top art that you find on fairgrounds, his airbrushed creations have continued to focus on what was referred to as "the universal language of the working class," in the press release for his SS24 collection — "I like to look at how certain ways of dressing are class-coded," Jacob tells me.
The first of his family to go to university, he grew up in Hamburg with his trucker father and florist mother. His upbringing often weaves itself into his work and the focus on working-class kitsch. "I think about my Great Aunt who collects porcelain dolls and statues; her tiny apartment is full of porcelain lions and stuff like that," says Jacob. "It's something I was surrounded by growing up."
With each collection, the German designer undergoes an exhaustive research period, mentioning that he's previously looked towards everything from football shirts to Japanese airbrush art.
"My mind is a mess and I've got a very short attention span, so I jump around a lot," says Jacob. "I've kind of figured out the relationship between the messy and the more refined, but it's not planned. It's the opposite of planned. I think it should be intuitive because that's what a younger, smaller brand can be that a bigger brand can't."
Once his mishmash of ideas comes together into a coherent image, there's still a lot more work to be done. Following a long-winded process of drawing and photoshopping, the time comes for his extravagant graphics to be either printed or airbrushed by hand onto clothing.
Armed with an airbrush, sandpaper, varnish, and a respirator mask, the designer estimates that each of his hand-painted leather jackets takes an average of six hours to carefully airbrush.
Each of these unique pieces is a labor of love — "Stores always ask me to bring the prices down of the jackets, but no one really realizes how long it takes," says Jacob — and the end result is a vibrant series of hand-painted garments that are truly like no other.
Gerrit Jacob AW23 is available to shop now from the Highsnobiety iOS App and Highsnobiety Shop.
