ANTHEM: 032c Readytowear Spring/Summer 2022 Campaign

BERLIN – March 17, 2021
032c launches ANTHEM, the Spring/Summer 2022 collection from 032cReadytowear, with a campaign creative directed by Maria Koch, photographed by Freja Wewer, and styled by Ras Baun Bartram.

In the club, an anthem is a safe and loose hymn of convergence. An “anthem” is an imperfect representation of its time, a story in progress, and a story of deterioration. The anthem compromises the authority of its maker and the integrity of its trajectory. Anthems tell stories and bring threads together, sometimes imperfectly; they describe design themes that run through venues, meeting points, and genres, as points of unpredictable access.

It took Leonard Cohen more than a decade to write “Anthem.” Before appearing on The Future (1992), the song was recorded during the production of 1984’s Various Positions. The introduction was accidentally erased by a studio technician. Cohen took this as a sign that it wasn’t meant to be – at least not then – and opted not to repair it. He found the right version when he added a crucial line to the “Ring the Bell … There is a crack in everything” chorus: “That’s how the light gets in.” “Anthem” is a practice and manual for this philosophy of non-repair, for embracing the flaw and the fracture as sources of light, as materials with which we make and re-make ourselves and our worlds. The 032c Readytowear Spring/Summer 2022 menswear and womenswear collections are called “Anthem” because it is an exploration of the constructive and essential breaks in all things – of the scaffolding that helps keep in the architecture of clothing.

Transparent fabrics and frayed edges reveal seams and substructures; these involve function, instability, and flex. External light reaches padded layers beneath outerwear shells, showing soft tissues that underlie form. Military jackets or “feminine” tunics use see-through organza to conjure and interrupt invisibility, providing visible elements of construction. Hardware is a tool of exposure: a zipper undone opens a trouser to new forms and occasions. Metal chain-link accents provide sightlines that connect cotton caps to wool tailoring, streamlined coats to maverick leather shorts. Trickster fabrics – iridescent velvet, earthy corduroy – play with reflection and shimmer, sometimes drama. Printed texts disclose technical properties – water resistance, use value – on featherweight nylon sets and soft bombers. Frayed denim centerpieces use stitching and seams as supports for revelation. Vulnerability and disclosure create strength and structure.

Metal mesh volunteers as armor beneath suites of tailoring – or beneath nothing at all. Pleats, straight legs, and embroidery semi-align with heritage citations. Wild silks, firm leathers, and cotton canvas are stable materials perturbed by hemlines and novel combinations.

Embroidered patches affixed DIY nuance and broadcast overlapping allegiances on corduroy varsity jackets, knitwear. The 032c logo is flanked by blank spaces of potential. Alterations and non-repairs such as ladders in a knitwear dress inhabit the splits, breaks, and openings that expose the materials and the wearer to the light, and lets it in. “Anthem” uses unraveling to invite shared experience and references, proposing essential points of overlap that transcend limits of strict composition. “Anthem” celebrates and pokes holes in what has been built before, equipping us for whatever is to come.