Richie Hawtin and Isolde Richly fashion label

On May 14th, 2009, Producer, DJ, and head of Minus recordings, Richie Hawtin and fashion designer, Isolde Richly presented their fashion label, Richly.Hawtin, at the Apartment store in Berlin-Mitte.

This collaboration, born from a chance meeting at Club d’Visionaire in Berlin and their love of Japan’s design and culture, started in earnest in Tokyo in 2008. They sought to use fashion as a physical medium to embody and explore the fleeting, intangible elegance of minimalist music and Japan’s beauty.

The clothing succeeds, bringing physicality to the musical ideas that flow from Minus, providing a satisfying source of visible expression for those with an affection for minimal. The fashion line also finds inspiration from Japan, Michael Kenna’s photo book capturing the country’s beauty.

Richly’s and Hawtin’s affinity for the quiet stillness found in Japan’s snow covered landscapes, calm seas and trees is seen in the gradients of grey that mark the elegantly stripped down clothing.

Like many of the tracks produced by Minus, the clothing evokes a dichotomy between the mechanistic and the organic. Each of the t-shirts, hoodies, dresses and jackets play like minimal tracks jittering with organic samples bounded by bare rhythm structures.

Some of the designs depict stringent beats being pulled in slightly off-kilter directions. Zippers in some cases act like guide rails, hedging in soft, slightly rippling cloth. In other pieces, zippers jut diagonally in unexpected directions, causing neck lines to curve and drape into beautifully chaotic folds.

While the clothings’ smooth lines frame the pieces sharply, thin bands of cloth and other smaller elements sedately accentuate the clothing’s basic frame like crisp hi-hats accenting a minimal track’s kick. Multiple shades of grey permeate all the pieces, either solidly, mixing gradually into one another, or contrasting abruptly.