Berlin Is for Liars
★ The February Issue
WHAT DO YOU CALL A BERLINER WHO HATES MITTE? A LIAR.
“February is the worst month of the year, but it’s an honest month,” journalist Kevin Killeen famously asserted in his now-classic 2016 report for KMOX radio. “It’s a month that doesn’t hold up life any better than it really is.”
Berlin, however, is not an honest city. Through the grey, it keeps lying—to you, to itself, to anyone who listens. It lies about opening times, queue lengths, and whether the person you just met is really a DJ. Spoiler: They aren’t.
I myself am guilty of this one. Recently, at a gallery on Potsdamer Strasse, I introduced my friend D. to a group of random Italian men as a DJ. She’s a copywriter. A good one, too. But in Berlin, that’s like admitting you collect taxidermied squirrels. So D. had to roll with the punches.
“Yeah, my stage name is DJ Cancelled,” she said without blinking an eye. “So whenever my gigs are cancelled, the announcement reads: ‘DJ Cancelled—Cancelled.’” They seemed to believe her. Of course they did. What is life without a little fiction?
Overheard on Auguststrasse:
“He told me he’s a sound artist who works with ‘found frequencies.’ Birds mating, stuff like that. The sex was great, actually.”
This past February, Berlin cleared its throat, put on its best PR voice, and (re)introduced itself to the world as a fashion capital.
It’s like your uncle pretending he’s a rockstar by playing air guitar. Bless his heart. Fashion Council Germany? Bless their hearts too. Since taking over from Mercedes-Benz three years ago, they’ve been trying—which is undeniably commendable, even if not always convincing. Side note: It’s easier to love a character who tries than the one who succeeds.
Overheard at a fashion week presentation on Unter den Linden:
“What’s the point of going to these things sober?”
Besides the carefully constructed illusion of effortless cool, the Rick Owens cosplay, and a general lack of bras, something Berlin runways tend to deliver is a coded, political gesture.
This season, though, GmbH—one of the city’s proudest sartorial exports with a sensible POV—took a step back from civic duties. “The world is in mourning,” co-founder Serhat Isik said. No demands. No declarations. Somber tones and familiar silhouettes. A collective exhale and retreat into comfort. Or a well-timed excuse to sell more clothes?
The creator of LUEDER, Marie Lueder, didn’t get the memo about keeping things low-key. She went for the jugular. A white tee, red lettering: “Men are so BACK.” A joke? A riddle? A warning? A prophecy? Hard to say. But it meant something.
That is precisely what Berlin’s fashion (or costuming, rather) is all about: conviction. You don’t have to look good. You just have to look like you mean it.
An unfinished hem. An unreasonably large leather trench. A Victorian nightgown layered over motocross pants. If you can make the whole ensemble appear intentional, you win. And if you can pull off a sheer top in the dead of a German winter and convince yourself you’re not cold, who’s to say you are?
Overheard at August Eleven’s fashion week dinner at Borchardt:
“My boyfriend took me to a Russian store in the West, LEDO. They had tons of smoked fish. Are you fucking kidding? I fucking love smoked fish. It was super cheap, too.”
The Berlinale is a different kind of performance—one where everyone is both critic and artiste.
For ten days straight, the city collectively lies about having seen the latest arthouse feature while setting alarms for 9:55 a.m. to score tickets to the one film starring an actor they recognize. (We love you, Robert Pattinson.)
Hollywood flies people in. They pretend to know where they are. Locals arriving by U-Bahn pretend to have funding. Everyone claps moderately.
Overheard in the Grand Hyatt lobby:
“Do you think Timothée Chalamet ever tried currywurst?”
This year’s Berlinale, its 75th, ushered in a new director: Tricia Tuttle, formerly of BFI London, apparently known for her gentle populist touch. She replaced Carlo Chatrian after a somewhat messy dismissal that left at least 300 industry darlings (Scorsese, Swinton, et al.) signing a letter demanding his reinstatement. It did not work. Evidently, not all men are back. Tuttle took the job.
Under her, the festival—still centered in Potsdamer Platz, a place that is both central and entirely without a center—continued its precarious balancing act. Moral urgency and aesthetic indulgence. Art with a capital “A” and Kylie Jenner with a capital “K.” A highbrow viewing culture catering en masse.
It’s not Cannes. It’s not Venice. It wasn’t designed to be. Those events are for financiers and their friends. The Berlinale, at its core, is for the audience.
That means your neighbour will suddenly develop strong opinions about Iranian slow cinema and Korean body horror. That means a guy in a Uniqlo puffer will hijack a Q&A with a world-famous director only to start with, “Uhm, it’s not really a question but more of a comment…” That means Chloë Sevigny will be out in these streets leaving autographs on people’s literal butt cheeks.
2025’s Golden Bear went to Drømmer, the final part in Norwegian director Dag Johan Haugerud’s Oslo Stories trilogy. A teenage girl falls in love with her teacher and writes about it. “But did it happen?” her mother asks. God knows at this point.
One critic described the plot as “a little problematic.” Another labelled Drømmer “a sly, garrulous, mischievous piece.” Someone at the Hyatt deli called it “the only thing my editor let me expense.”
Overheard at the Berlinale afterparty at Soho House:
“I feel like I’m living in a Lars von Trier film. But worse music. And even more torture.”
Germany went to the polls this past February, too. If you were expecting something (anything), you must be new here.
Everyone’s disappointed, but no one’s surprised. Every take is right. Every take is wrong. Every take is exhausted.
The conviction of crisis. The eternal loop of outrage and apathy. The parties changing. The afterparties imploding. The coalitions shifting. The discourse burning itself out and resurfacing under a new name.
If you squint hard enough, you realize you’ve seen this movie before. A new moment with a very familiar script. A system that demands your participation, even as the only change it offers is that of a costume.
Perhaps that’s the point: the spectacle itself, the cycle of hope and disillusionment, the comforting rhythm of a system that, despite its flaws, keeps us moving. Or at least, keeps us entertained.
Uncertainty as the premise. Lies as accessories. A place that believes in everything and nothing at once, Berlin dresses for the version of the story it wants to be true. And in February—who’s to say it isn’t?
★ TBD Excitement
Apple TV’s new show Berlin ER. Renata Litvinova’s Nordwind screening at the Zoo Palast. HoBB’s Berlin Salon at Eoin Moylan’s studio. LOBB’s new “Bar Basta” breakfast at Casa Camper. Ed Atkins at the Deutsche Oper. Debussy & Mozart at the Philharmonie (never underestimate the power of Debussy). M¥SS KETA! The opening of the new Detroit-style pizza place on Rosenthaler? Final Girls festival. EMOP, but not really. Helmut Newton’s Polaroids, for sure.
★ IRL of the Month
Berlin’s quietest shoe repair legend
Schwedter Strasse 254, 10119 Berlin
Outside of the posturing and the pondering, there are still people who actually do things out in the real world. Case in point: the Leder-/Schuhreparatur & Änderungsschneiderei in the basement of Schwedter Strasse 254, right across from Lidl. Not the first address showing up on Google Maps. No website. No Instagram. No English, neither. The opening hours are 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., or 6 p.m. on a good day. If you need a shoemaker—like a real shoemaker, not a “craft atelier”—this is the guy. He can fix, reconstruct, and reinforce just about anything.
For all the fashion victims out there: this man slapped a protective rubber sole on my tabis so they wouldn’t self-destruct after one stroll down Torstrasse. When I handed those over, he examined them for half a second before asking, unironically, if they were some kind of character shoes. Specifically, if I was playing a goat in a theatre play. I affirmed. This is the kind of place you either know about, or you don’t. Now you do.
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Timotheeee (how many e’s does he have?) looks like he needs a good currywurst in him.
Great tip about the cobbler…and thanks for all the rest of the cobblers!
Good stuff