BERTO FOR DZAINO: #INTERVIEW
Can you recall the exact moment when you decided to become a fashion designer?

When we met for the first time in Hamburg in 2005 at the Academy Fashion and Design (AMD) our journey as designers started. We both decided to study Integrated Fashion Design in Bremen after one semester at AMD. The combination of fashion, product and communication design at the University of Arts was more what suits our interests as designers. Julia worked in fashion, film, photography and theatre and Hanna worked in fashion, graphic design and sustainable fashion. Since we both moved to Berlin in 2013, we started thinking about founding a sustainable bag label with denim materials.


"Its very hard to find good looking sustainable denim fabrics with GOTS certification. We appreciate the Berto Young Talents programm and think it is a great opportunity for young designers to be part of this."
What was your first project?

Our first project started with the idea of producing a new bag for yoga mats. Since we disliked all yogamatbags on the market we thought its time to design a cool yogamatbag. The basic idea of our label Dzaino is to work with used jeans, to deconstruct them and to create new products out of them. We think the current upcycling aesthetics need a new fresh and modern design. Thats why we design upcycling bags that don’t look like upcycling products. Now we would like to expand our possibilities and use Berto fabrics to combine them with our upcycling concept.

Creative process: do you work instinctively or planning each single small step? Where do your ideas come from?

The process mostly looks like this: The first step is very instinctively. We share ideas, we talk about what we see, what we experience, what we like, what impresses us. From this, our concrete design ideas arouse. The steps after the first associative parts are planned in detail. The production, the materials, etc.

What did you think when you have been contacted by Berto first?

Its very hard to find good looking sustainable denim fabrics with GOTS certification. We appreciate the Berto Young Talents programm and think it is a great opportunity for young designers to be part of this. The minimum order amount for fabrics is quite often too big for small design brands, Berto helps us by offering a minimum order of just 1 m. Additionally we like the idea of collaborating with an Italian company because we always had a connection to Italy, which is also one of the reasons our brand name developed of the italian word Zaino.

Which Berto’s fabrics have you been working with for your project/collection?
We chose
- 4106 GLOBE SKY 10 KRS
- 4014 DRAKE LIME
- 3828 ROCK-ME AIR 12.5
- 3828 ROCK-ME AIR in BLACK

What's the most meaningful part about this project in your opinion? What have you been able to achieve thanks to this program?

We are still at the beginning of our first Berto Product. The first item will be an apron, which is exciting for us because it will be the first clothing item. At the same time we are planning to use Berto fabrics for our Dzaino bags.

“Less but better” could be read as an endorsement for purity in design but in fashion design too. It can also be adopted as an environmental message about reduction and sustainability. What do you think about this?

Our brand values are built on exact these topics. On the one hand we are designers who believe in a minimalistic and clear aestehtic without ornaments and secondly we think that the fashion industry needs to become more sustainable. Because there is no planet B.

Is there anything you'd like to do that you haven't done yet?

Our wish is develop our label into a sustainable ambassador-brand. We also volunteer for the campaign Fashion Revolution and believe that its important to reach more people telling the message that fashion and design must be produced in a sustainable industry. Also we would be absolutely interested in "travelling along the supply chain". We would love to learn more about how the GOTS certified cotton is grown and then processed into yarn and into fabrics at Berto. Let us know if there are any possibilities to visit your company and factories!

http://dzaino.com/