After studying at the international fashion school, ESMOD, Berlin, Thomas Hintz and Tanja Kim Kupke converged and gave birth to VERSUCHSKIND DENIM. Where from the very beginning they had just one rule: the brand has the priority. The jeans, produced entirely in Germany, speak for themselves.
The brand artwork, designed by internationally successful sculptor and artist Matthias Hintz, depicts a child’s head, from which an antenna grows, symbolising an enormous interest of the child for everything. The child is unbiased and has a pure view of the world, thus it has the complete capability to think ‘new’. This resonates from the very core of VERSUCHSKIND with even the brand name translating as ‘experimental child’. The brand seeks to test and adopt new therapies, implement unique and different garment techniques.
Hintz and Kupke admit, “VERSUCHSKIND jeans are no typical blue jeans. Of course, we use real jean fabrications such as flat-felled seams but during the design process, we decided to exclude regular jean characteristics such as a button-fly, rivets and the leather label. We add new ideas like silk piping, silk pocket linings and real silver-coated buttons sewed on by hand. The jeans really do have a luxury element”.
They go on to explain that the artwork for VERSUCHSKIND “consists of several dyes and wax levels. All the colours of the collection are directly inspired from the artwork, a spectrum of white, grey, blue and black. All finishes, washes and colourings are made by hand to make each pair of jeans look different and inimitable – the patina, a surface sheen that develops on the fabric with age or frequent wear, is what we think gives them a real unique and individual edge. Like an artist, we use the denim as a screen – colouring, shading and painting – we do not rub or destroy the fabrics. Multiple coatings give the jeans an amazing structure”.
The key facet is that the wearer gets to imprint his own traces of usage. The jeans tell your story, as it happens. In terms of shape and fit, VERSUCHSKIND jeans always have a swing in the leg. Hintz and Kupke explain that the curved leg “produces a typically masculine style, like that of a Cowboy. This original look of the jeans is the base, and the approach, of the work from VERSUCHSKIND”.
All VERSUCHSKIND collections are created with careful CO2 Emission considerations. The current VERSUCHSKIND collection is available in Berlin and will be available to buy in selected shops around Europe soon. For more information visit www.versuchskind.com.
by Emma Jayne Daniels