On The Scene: Marcel Ostertag’s First American Showcase

Marcel Ostertag’s Fall 2016 collection was shown this past week at New York Fashion Week.

Ostertag, a German designer, was brought from Berlin to New York City, after winning a designing competition and outshining over 500 other designers. “To be here after half a year working on the collection, and making the collection larger, because normally they are between 30 and 40 looks, and now it’s 60 looks.”

60 distinct designs were showcased in Ostertag’s Rain Collection, ranging from simple blue dresses, to extravagant red gowns, that all moved in correlation with rain and water. Ostertag has made it a point to create his collections based off of the four elements, with this season becoming Rain (the water element). “Always after a rain, you have really fresh air, and a new beginning. And this collection for me is a new beginning, because it’s the first time showing in New York, which is a great honor for me.”

The colors moved from “light blue, going on into rosy colors. And we have a lot of movement in the collection, that means we have some beaded fringes with pearls that move, so they look like raindrops. And then we printed raindrops on silk… we used a lot of silk, cotton, cashmere, fake furs and everything you see here is produced in Germany. So I know all the tailors, I know all the knitters and that’s something fantastic.”

One of the most beautiful pieces was a floor length, white cut-out dress, with a black belt. Different variations of this piece were shown throughout the collection, but this dress popped in a room filled with bright colors and distinct fabrics. The white dress had cut-outs that almost resembled raindrops, and were distributed throughout the entire piece, allowing skin to be shown, but in a tasteful manner. The final piece however, stood out among the rest: a red, floor length, gown, paired with a black belt, moved across the stage to finish the show. The pattern on the piece looked like sparks of fire, juxtaposing the water symbols used throughout the rest of the collection. Sections of the models skin were shown within the sparked pattern, which created an edge within this elegant final piece.