Business and romantic partners Susi Streich and Yasar Ceviker founded A Kind of Guise in 2009 while they were still students sharing an apartment in Munich, Germany. After Ceviker received compliments on a duffle bag he’d made out of a patchwork leather, the pair decided to buy more leather and produce 25 bags in three different styles: a duffle bag, a tote bag and a weekender. Around the same time, Ceviker’s friend opened the store HRVST in Munich and asked the pair to produce shirts for it; belts and gym bags made out of suede and silk followed. Soon after, a Japanese agency offered to represent the brand. Streich and Ceviker subsequently found a factory in Allgäu to produce their small collection and a handful of stores, including Schwittenberg and HRVST in Munich, Wood Wood in Berlin and Making Things in Zurich and Japan, to carry it.

Despite A Kind of Guise’s humble beginnings, Streich and Ceviker have always had big aspirations: “We didn’t want to launch a classic Munich backyard-label, which I don’t mean with any offense. When we wanted to start a brand we already knew it should become international,” Ceviker told This Orient in 2017. The couple named their brand after a play on words of the line “I’m the type of guy…” from the 1961 song, “The Wanderer” by Dion and the Belmonts, and settled on English as its de facto language in order to appeal to the broadest audience possible. Streich and Ceviker have taken their international scope even further, however, by doing extensive research and traveling to countries—such as Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Morocco, Turkey and Japan—that inspire their collections.

Yet, although Streich and Ceviker draw inspiration from around the world, one of the main tenets of A Kind of Guise is to produce functional clothing made locally and sustainably. The brand works with over 16 specialized domestic factories and has gained a cult following for its mix of high-quality technical and traditional fabrics—including Harris Tweed, EtaProof® cotton, Loden-Steiner wool and Steiff furs—sourced from places such as Austria, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Scotland and Japan. Streich and Ceviker pair their superior fabrics with subtle yet unusual silhouettes and design details, as well as humorous, pop culture-inspired slogans, such as “Stay Classy,” that have helped establish A Kind of Guise as a leader in refined streetwear over the past nine years. In 2012, the couple opened their first store in an old book store in the Schwabing neighborhood of Munich and, in 2015, they opened an additional flagship in Berlin. A Kind of Guise now counts approximately 50 stockists worldwide, including Need Supply, Other Shop and UNIONMADE.

Known for its German production and inspiration, high quality fabrics and subdued but strange details, Frank Leder has built his eponymous label slowly over the past 17 years. Born and raised in Nuremberg, Germany, Leder attended the renowned Central St. Martins in London for both his B.A. and M.A. in fashion; as a 26 year-old student, he began designing and producing garments (with the hopes of capturing a “Germanness” comparable to the “Britishness” of Paul Smith’s clothing) that he sold in the city’s Soho neighborhood. However, in 2001, Leder decided to move back to Germany so he could communicate with factories in his native language. He initially started by working with a couple of shops and eventually established relationships with a number of German factories that he taught how to sew his growing range of shirts, trousers and jackets.

Since returning to Germany, Leder has established a home base in Berlin while achieving his goal of developing a singularly German aesthetic. He has also cultivated a loyal following, especially in Japan where the majority of his 60 stockists are located, due to his unique aesthetics and precise attention to detail. Fascinated by sociology—in particular traditional rites, rituals and fashions of German men—Leder has based collections on woodsmen, racing jockeys and even carpenters who travel around the country for three years and a day. Leder sources the majority of his fabrics, such as Deutschleder—a heavyweight cotton used for traditional carpenters’ clothing—and Tyrolean Schladminger wool from a handful of countries, including Germany, England, Austria and Switzerland. He even goes as far as to use vintage buttons from the ’20s-’50s, that people collect for him throughout Germany.

While Leder doesn’t show at trade shows, he has created buzz through unusual, art-driven experiments—such as baking a shirt inside bread, sewing bank notes from out-of-circulation currency into blazers and placing old photographs taken by his father in the pockets of trousers—that he claims he does in order to mix things up from the usual repetitions of designing, producing and selling clothes. A handful of years ago, Leder debuted Tradition, a line of small-batch artisanal grooming products made in Austria and Germany that feature Bakelite screw top caps and unusual scents inspired by his childhood, such as sausage, mushroom and elderflower. More recently, for his retrospective Fall/Winter 2017 collection, Leder included a vintage key with each garment, one of which opens a box in his studio that contains special items related to his brand.

032c began in 2001 as a Berlin-based zine founded by editor and creative director Joerg Koch, and named after a hue of Pantone red (the first three issues have solid red covers), but has grown into a highly influential, multi-platform brand over the past seventeen years. In 2007, Koch invited art director Mike Meiré to redesign the magazine, turning it into a collage of text and images that, according to publications such as Eye on Design, sparked “a graphic revolt that spurred the popularity of ‘the new ugly.’” With a striking new layout and a unique mix of cultural criticism from writers such as Hans Ulrich Obrist and David Woodward, brand histories for the likes of Comme des Garçons and Raf Simons, conceptual photo spreads from photographers such as Mario Sorrenti and Inez & Vinoodh, collaborations with artists including Juergen Teller and Wolfgang Tillmans and featuring stars such as Rihanna, Cate Blanchett and Bella Hadid on its covers, 032c quickly became a cultural touchstone for art enthusiasts and fashion fans alike.

In 2015, 032c officially ventured into clothing with a small collection designed by Koch’s wife, Maria, who currently consults for Yeezy and formerly worked as a womenswear designer for Jil Sander, Prada and Marios Schwab. The following year, Koch became editor-in-chief of luxury fashion e-retailer Ssense, which not only increased his clout, but exponentially expanded the reach of 032c’s fashion line. 2017 was an even busier year for 032c. In October, it launched the brand SSS World Corp, a sophisticated take on streetwear designed by former Brioni designer Justin O’Shea; the label’s first collection, “Aloha from Hell”, was quickly picked up by over 20 stockists around the world.

To kick off 2018, 032c found another significant platform for its clothing brand, debuting its first ready-to-wear collection—inspired by John A. Rice’s experimental and highly influential Black Mountain College—at Pitti Uomo with a show that featured spoken word poetry and a pole dancer. While the collection was by no means groundbreaking—it was mainly an eclectic of-the-moment mix of graphic tees and hoodies, cargos, leather sleepwear, and oversized fleeces—it was significant for the pure fact that it was presented within the more buttoned-up environment of Pitti Uomo, a testament to the power Koch and 032c currently wield. With print editions of roughly 70,000 copies distributed throughout 28 countries, an online readership of over 22 million per month and a clothing carried by over 30 of the most influential retailers in the world—including Union Los Angeles, Lane Crawford, Selfridges, The Webster, and Ssense—expect 032c’s influence to continue to expand.

Founded in Berlin in 2016 by designer Serhat Isik and photographer Benjamin Alexander Huseby, GmBH (which stands for the German equivalent of an LLC) is a brand and design collective inspired by the multiculturalism of the city’s techno club scene. Both Isik (Turkish-German) and Huseby (Norwegian-Pakistani) come from multicultural backgrounds and their brand strives to celebrate diversity and alternative forms of family: “In the gay community, it’s very important that you create your own family because your life doesn’t fit into traditional family structures. Also, in Berlin people come from all kind of places, and are far away from their original families,” Isik explained to Dazed in 2016. Isik and Huseby base much of the aesthetics of their brand on the style of their friends and families, naming their garments after they people who inspire them, casting boys and girls from their neighborhood as models and even basing their Spring/Summer 2018 collection on their fathers’ stories as European immigrants.

Also central to GmBH is the concept of sustainability. Isik and Huseby mainly use deadstock fabric from a high-end Milanese factory for their garments, which was all they could afford for their first season, but inspired them to almost exclusively use deadstock and upcycled fabrics since then; for its Spring/Summer 2018 collection, GmBH showed color-blocked outerwear made from old Helly Hansen parkas and leather accessories made from deadstock hides. And, despite what traditionalists might see as unusual fabrics—Isik and Huseby have an affinity for technical fabrics, velvet and PVC—GmBH strives to produce wardrobe essentials that are “standard products that it feels like you have always owned.”

Raised in Kreuzberg, Germany and of Laotian descent, Hien Le foresaw a career in fashion design for himself as early as 12 years old: “[…] I was sitting in front of the TV and watching House of Style with Cindy Crawford. Karl Lagerfeld was a guest in one of the episodes and ever since I started fantasizing about life as a fashion designer,” he explained to Freunde von Freunden in 2016. Le went on to complete an apprenticeship in tailoring, study Fashion Design at the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin and work for French Marie Claire and Veronique Branquinho’s Agency V before deciding to quit his job doing PR and launch his eponymous label at Berlin Fashion Week in the summer of 2010. A year later, his third collection received numerous accolades, including third prize in the “Start your Fashion Business” competition in July 2011 and nomination for “Best Newcomer” by the international fashion trade magazine Sportswear International.

Since then, Le has developed a reputation for both his men’s and women’s collections that effortlessly mix Scandinavian minimalism, sportswear and relaxed tailoring. Like a number of his German peers on this list, he is also focused on sustainability; Le produces all of his garments in Germany and sources the majority of his materials from within Europe, including cotton from Switzerland and silk from France, which are then dyed naturally in Germany. Le has also separated himself through his abundant use of silk, which adds a level of sophistication and fluidness—in terms of both drape and gender—to his collections.

More recently, Le has expanded the scope of his brand; in 2015, he introduced the Hien Le No.1 unisex fragrance in collaboration with perfumer Mark Buxton and Verdúu Fragrances and, in 2016, he debuted a small collection of jewelry to match his Spring/Summer 2016 collection inspired by tennis and California in the ’50s and ’60s. Le’s collections are currently stocked throughout Germany and internationally in Switzerland, Tokyo, Hong Kong and the United States.