Schau26

Silver Lining: Fashion as Protest. The Berlin University of the Arts is exhibiting students’ designs in public spaces.

Budget cuts have sparked new forms of collaboration. Protest creates opportunities for the future, highlights intersections, and fosters synergies. On Saturday, 4 July 2026, the Institute for Experimental Clothing and Textile Design at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) will present the work of its Bachelor’s and Master’s students throughout Bleibtreustraße in Charlottenburg. Schau26 is open to the public and the street itself will be transformed specifically for the event.

As part of Berlin Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2026, the UdK is collaborating for the first time with PLATTE e. V., the organisation supporting emerging Berlin designers, to strengthen shared objectives. For Schau26 students are also working with the “Friends of Bleibtreustraße” to activate and reimagine existing local infrastructure, bringing their designs directly into the urban environment.

Schau26 presents fashion as an interventionist practice: not in isolation, but as part of a vibrant, constantly changing urban space.

Schau26 relocates the runway to Berlin’s public spaces and sees itself as an intervention that illustrates the fractures and potential within the urban fabric.

Fashion and the shaping of bodies become subversive disruptions within a sought-after paradigm shift in urban space - for visibility and access. This gives rise to fleeting images, somewhere between deliberate staging and spontaneous snapshots, which speculatively sketch out possible futures.

The Friends of Bleibtreustraße Association, BID Ku'damm-Tauentzien, and PLATTE.Berlin stand together in support of this project: Creative infrastructure doesn't thrive on its own—it requires a city that recognizes its value and actively supports it.

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