032c: Can a Magazine Start a Fashion Line?

TRANSCRIPT

Joerg Koch: The general paradox I feel is fashion has become so important that you need fashion to sell cars, to sell holidays, to sell architecture, but that the actual fashion has become quite meaningless. Like how many people are actually deeply caring about a fashion garment or a fashion brand etc.

Dan Rubinstein: Hi, I’m Dan Rubinstein and this is The Grand Tourist. I’ve been a design journalist for more than 20 years, and this is my personalized guided tour to the world of fashion, art, architecture, food, and travel. All the elements of a well-lived life.

Magazines are going through a little resurgence lately and I’ve even launched my own after a few decades in the business. It’s been an incredible ride even after just one issue. It’s made me think about how despite the changes in technology, print still holds a magical place in our hearts.

And it’s also made me think about the titles from around the world that really made an impact on me. With just paper and ink, they create an entire world, a mood, a message, something new. Many are excellent, but only a handful boldly break the mold.

My guests today are part of a brand that started in print and have definitely made an impact on the world of fashion, art, and culture in a profound and lasting way. Joerg and Maria Koch of Berlin-based 032c. The magazine started as a newsprint zine of sorts in 2001, went glossy a few years later to become a cultural bible that has always been on the cutting edge with contributions from creme de la creme photographers such as Juergen Teller, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Steven Klein.

But it’s not all frivolous, transgressive image-making either. For example, the new issue takes a deep dive into what they call techno-feudalism with serious commentary on the warping of democracy in the USA and its impact on the global stage. Oh, and P.S., the magazine’s mysterious name comes from a stark red pantone color. More on that later. Over time, instead of selling out and dumbing down the editorial message of the magazine, dubbed the “Manual for Freedom, Research, and Creativity,” it expanded in other ways. Most notably, Joerg teamed up with his wife Maria, a fashion veteran, to expand on some of the merch coming from the company, which over time has now blossomed into a more fully-fledged fashion brand with ready-to-wear for both men and women.

I caught up with Joerg and Maria, both in Berlin, to discuss the origins of the phenom that is 032c, what Maria learned by working for the legendary designer Jil Sander, how the pair met, the inventive way the fashion side of the business has evolved from print, their advice for the next generation of upstarts, and much more.

It’s such a pleasure to speak with you guys today. 032c has become such a powerful force in creativity and in fashion and publishing, but I wanted to rewind a little bit. Joerg, I believe you were originally from Frankfurt, but what was your life like before moving to Berlin?

JK: I grew up in a conservative environment, I would say, but the life-changing moment was for me to be into punk rock, hardcore, straight-edge, you know, like this whole DIY culture. That probably has shaped everything, what I’ve been doing since then.

When did that kick off for you? How old were you when you shocked your parents with some punk outfits?

JK: I was probably around 13, 14. That started it.

What did your parents think?

JK: Well, actually, I was also a card-carrying member of a revolutionary socialist party. So you can imagine how niche it was and how fringe it was, like living drug-free, being a socialist in the late ’80s, early ’90s.

I bet your parents were thrilled. Were your parents more conservative? Were they more socialist themselves?

JK: No, they were conservative liberals. A very loving family, I have to say.

Oh, good. Well, Maria, what about yourself? I mean, you’ve been a fashion designer for your entire career. Were you always interested in design or fashion like that as a young girl?

Maria Koch: I would say I was always interested in what you can call beauty, no matter if I would find this in music or in being with animals or later with art. And then it ended up in fashion. I feel my driving force somehow.

Where were you from originally?

MK: I’m from Göttingen. It’s actually a similar setup as Joerg’s, but my parents were, I would say, left-wing intellectuals, and it wasn’t that easy to emancipate from this household, to be cooler than your parents, etc. I found a way. I chose hardcore rave and graffiti.

Hardcore rave.

MK: And this was, even for them, a little bit on the edge. Somehow, this was my little punk moment, as Joerg described. But they were always super caring and understanding as well, no matter what I would do or how I would come home. It was a very protective environment, nevertheless, even when I think I really did some fun stuff here and there.

Okay. And Joerg, when did you first move to Berlin?

JK: That was, I think, in the mid-’90s, ’96, ’97.

And it must have been a very different city back then as compared to today, the height of that artist scene that everyone, at least in the U.S., equates with Berlin at that time. What was it like when you first moved there? What was that first year living in Berlin like for you?

JK: The fun fact is, I had never been to Berlin before. It was always a cliche when you grew up in West Germany to have a school trip to Berlin, to see the Berlin Wall, etc. And there was always this competition with the hardcore scene in Berlin versus the rest of Germany. So I never really bothered to go to Berlin. But directly after school, as any provincial West German kid, I was dreaming of living in New York. So I went to New York, lived there for six, eight months. And then I had the choice of either studying at Columbia University, which cost back then, I think, 20, 30k or something like that, versus studying for free. And then I just moved to Berlin because that was the biggest city in Germany. And it was like a period where you still had this post Berlin Wall euphoria. But of course, it kind of cooled down. So I caught, like I would say, the last wave of possibilities. But even that was like really defining of what’s possible. Because Berlin back then was like a very optimistic space, but also completely bankrupt. It was like New York in the ’70s, like a big city bankrupt. But you had all these open spaces and possibilities reigned supreme.

You know the stories of people opening a bar in an empty basement or starting a party, etc. And people doing stuff. It didn’t matter to make money because it was very, very cheap to live in Berlin these days.

And Maria, what were some of your first jobs out of school? Did you study design on your own, first?

MK: So I studied in Berlin and I came to Berlin in ’97, but I had family here earlier. So I’ve been quite often in Berlin and I always felt that it’s a very rough, but at the same time romantic city. Because as Joerg described, of this incredible room and the freedom you have in this city.

And I still feel this is somehow in the air, even when it’s not true anymore. And it’s very expensive now, but it’s somehow a part of the DNA of the city. So I started here, then I had a job again in West Germany, in a super small city for two years and worked my ass off to get a better job. And then I landed at Jil Sander and this was very important to me to work with her.

And Joerg, you were running for different papers, I think, when you first got to Berlin as a freelance journalist. Is that right? Was that the beginning for you in terms of your career?

JK: A little bit. I was also working for a multimedia agency that started the first web magazine in Germany. Like culture, net culture, internet culture, music, pop culture, etc. And that was very interesting. It was, again, the start of a dot-com era. I was like this little whiz kid.

But meanwhile, coming from my background, I had no interest in making money. So that was like a dichotomy, a discrepancy to the general startup vibe back then. But I was really, really interested in the new possibilities there.

And you also worked on some experimental zines and some of your own publishing projects before 032c. Is that true? Tell me a little bit about that sort of phase.

JK: I mean, that was just part of the punk culture of what I refer to as DIY, that you just start your own stuff. And that meant that I did like fanzines, I organized concerts when I was 16, or I had a record label. So that was just like the natural modus operandi, I think, for anybody in the scene.

And Maria, what were those first years like working for Jil Sander?

JK: That’s a real hardcore switch always between punk fanzines to Miss Jil Sander.

MK: I know. I don’t want to neglect anybody. 

MK: What Joerg and I really have in common, and this is, I think, the main driving force. I mean, of course, we want to make money now because we have a big machine in our back ends. But this was never the driving force. It was always about just producing very deeply, like deeply considered quality stuff and to be on point and to be seen. I think this is super important. So this was as well my doctrine when I worked at Jill Sander. I really worked much more than everybody else.

I had a little, you know, just competition with myself to stay always till 10 in the office and to produce more and more and more so that I would be in her, you know, or on her agenda. And I was after half a year. Then she was always, “Oh, this, our little young gun, she should show me her stuff,”and did it. And I was like, “Yeah, yeah.” So it was very, for me, this super ambition worked really out very well for me there.

And what would you say you learned from her design wise? Like what made her unique, you know, in that sort of office?

MK: What really impressed me back then was that she never excused her fetish on precision, even when she would drive everybody nuts. And it was really about the millimeters or that the blue, everybody saw the perfect blue, but she felt it’s missing a hint of black or whatsoever. And to insist on that, it’s not perfect yet.

And to not feel guilty for this, I wouldn’t say punishment, but, you know, for this big pressure that she opened up quite often. And this is very interesting because the result is then when you’re brave enough to do that, much more in the area of excellence than when you say, “Okay, let them go home, it’s late now,” etc.

And in the U.S. around the year 2001 was a really bad time for the media, before there was a kind of an advertising boom, and it happened after 9/11. Joerg can you take me back to Berlin at the turn of the century, when 032c got its first beginnings, like what was that like? Why that color? How did that first spark of an idea come to you?

JK: I think, like you can see from the name 032c, that it was never really commercially intended, right? It’s quite a cryptic name, but it’s like the Pantone color code for red. And it was started as a fanzine out of a project space I had with two friends.

So we did like, it was like a three-dimensional fanzine. Like we did shows on metabolism, the Japanese avant-garde architecture. And then next was like a show with Terrence Richard Jones of i-D magazine.

And then there was a fashion show with Bless. And so that was like Berlin in a nutshell. We were young, stupid, and ambitious, but also when people wanted to buy something, we said, “No, it’s not for sale.”

So, we just did this for one and a half years. And back then, it was obviously like local in Berlin Mitte. But I realized that there’s a huge interest in Berlin from people abroad.

And also that there is no real publication outlining the new fashion reference system. You know, like you had like a new generation of fashion designers like Helmut Lang and then Raf Simons and Hedi Slimane. And it was completely different from a world of like Karl Lagerfeld, for instance, back then.

And it was referring more to music, architecture, politics, etc. And so that was the starting point to have a magazine that captures the zeitgeist in a more abstract way than normally lifestyle publications did at that time.

And what was the first reaction to it? Was it a difficult sell? Did people just pick up on it right away or did you have some pushback against the Karl Lagerfeld sort of…?

JK: No, Dan, you have to imagine it was like a newspaper thing, black, red printed and newspaper as a limited edition of 2,500 copies. So if you know newspaper printing, you can’t like just print 2,500 copies because once you push the button on a machine, it runs through. So I think we always printed like 10,000 copies and had to throw away like 7,500 copies.

So, it was not like a real sustainable affair, but like dirt cheap to do. And so this was like a thing like a newspaper with intellectual content and then distributed to places like Colette, etc. So obviously in Germany, no one got it.

Like there was nothing, you know? And that was also like the reason why it was published from the beginning in English because you didn’t have like this echo chamber for it in Germany, because Germany, it was much easier. Let’s put it this way. It was much easier for me to create a hype or whatever or an interest in Paris, London or New York or like Tokyo, Japan became quite important at that time. Than in Germany, because everything was fragmented in Germany and you had a federal structure. You have Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Berlin. And Berlin, the scene back then was quite small.

And how long was this newspaper era before you went into a glossy age? Because that’s when I think New Yorkers really first started to see it, was in that era.

JK: Yeah, I did three issues. Always with the same cover, like a red square. So that was also confusing. And then I started to print photography, proper photography and switched over to classic magazine structure.

Okay. So it was about like a year and a half, or?

JK: Yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah, something like that.

And, you know, of course the motto of the magazine, and now label, is “Manual for freedom research and creativity.” Tell me about the freedom part. And why do you think that was really key to your belief and what you were trying to say with the magazine?

JK: I think 032c was always like a political publication in terms of empowering people to think for themselves, obviously. And also to lead by example. Like if we can do it, if we can do something like this, other people can do it for sure as well. With the right level of commitment. And of course, like when you’re here in Berlin, in a place where it’s so tormented by history and where so much evil came out, but also so much good, the freedom part is quite self-evident, I think, for like a Berlin publication.

And so, at what point did the two of you meet? Maria, do you remember the first day you met Joerg?

MK: I do, but we actually met on the internet.

JK: It’s a very modern day love affair.

MK: We met simply on Facebook, started to write, and I think this went on for half a year. And then we decided that, because we never met each other in Berlin, even when we were in the same circles, in the same context, we just never met, which is really surprising. But however, and then we decided to meet and yeah.

So you guys met on Facebook. That’s really interesting. I kind of feel like you guys would have some really amazing, cool story. When you guys first did meet face-to-face, what was your impression of Joerg, Maria?

MK: I don’t know. I was so nervous because I was already in love. I was so nervous that I remember myself just looking down on the ground all the time because it was just too much information for my little brain. I mean, I was just very, very in love, super impressed by him. But I don’t really remember what I thought. I just have this feeling of nervousness in me still, when I think about it.

Did you have any impression of the magazine at the time? Like, were you reading it or anything?

MK: Not at all. I didn’t really like it. Because I felt—I wouldn’t say that there was an arrogance here behind it, but I had so many friends of mine who hyped this magazine up as crazy. And I’m this kind of person, you know, when somebody or when a whole friend circle says, “Oh, you have to watch this movie. You have to, you have to, you have to.” I get then in this anti-moment where I feel, “No, maybe not.” And there’s always a reason why everybody’s pushing me to watch a movie or to read this magazine because it’s quite good. So, I read them later and understood why it has this hype and why it’s so important.

JK: We fight for every soul, to reach them.

And what was your first impression of Maria, Joerg? Like, what sparked that connection?

JK: No, I was like really impressed or fell in love with her sharpness, you know?

(SPONSOR BREAK)

And as the magazine grew, a lot of the special projects that the company started to do were gaining steam. How did this idea for a fashion collection start? 

Because I know that there’s sort of an element of evolved merch culture as a part of it. So, if you could tell me a little bit about that evolution from a glossy print magazine into more of what is now a fully fledged lifestyle brand.

MK: I think it’s a combination of two streams that happened. The first thing was that we saw just on the internet kids who would create their own 032c merchandise. I remember a young young man from Moscow or Kiev, which is like, you know, to compare this.

So however, they created their own handy covers. And another girl, I think she was from Italy, did like her own sweater with the logo, et cetera. And then we just understood that back then the kids were very interested in having somehow a more physical connection to this magazine, like really to wearing this magazine.

And I worked at a designer here in Berlin and Joerg was on the magazine, and a friend of ours was like, “You guys should work together. We see now this phenomenon that a lot of kids are creating their own merch. You guys are extremely in love, very symbiotic in how tight you discuss things, live together, blah, blah. You should share your time and your life within this work environment as well.” And we felt that wow, this is a smart idea. So right, somehow like this.

Joerg, what was your take on that, on that genesis?

JK: No, it was true. I mean, like it was bloody obvious what he said there. Like we were sitting in the living room. I remember it. We were sitting on the couch talking about life. And then he said, just like, “Why don’t you combine it?”And we were like, “Duh, yeah.” You know, it just didn’t occur to us back then, you know. But I think why it’s possible is interesting because like 032c, I think, was never intended to be just a print magazine. Because I came from a digital background. 

So, the funny story for me is always how 032c as print started like, you know, back in 2000s, what meant going viral? It meant that you got covered by other magazines.

And I wanted originally, the plan was to do a streaming media website and to announce the URL that this fanzine is out there and gets picked up by newspapers or by i-D and The Face to write about it, you know. But like, the whole streaming media thing was a dead end because I bought a hard disk and then I had no money whatsoever because it was so bloody expensive. And SHOWstudio events started, I think around the time, like a little bit later, but obviously Nick Knight had more cash.

So the print magazine really worked perfectly within the budget constraints and for the impact it had. But, that was never the end game for it. 032c could have theoretically also evolved into like real estate development with storytelling around it, so there was like an openness. And I think that’s why the transition was working to start a merch line first and then a fashion line, etc. By now, I think 032c is the first media brand that has transformed itself into a fashion brand.

At this point in time is the fashion brand the bulk of the business? What kind of percentage of the overall business, in a rough sense, would you say is now fashion versus publishing?

JK: Yeah, I mean, fashion is much bigger, simply because of the scope and you know, media is in general a shrinking business. So, it’s much easier to expand in fashion than in media.

Here’s a question I wanted to ask earlier. Was there any particular story or issue that you worked on with 032c at its height, before the addition of fashion, that you felt really embodied what the brand was about, what the title was about. To give people a sense of the ultimate 032c story. 

For someone listening who may not have ever read the magazine, was there a particular issue or a particular story where you feel like you hit a nerve that really solidified what the title was really all about. Or a favorite issue of yours that you just loved?

MK: Like, no, I have one, but this was a photo story of Juergen Teller and Kirsten McManamy in the Carlo Mollino house, right? This was really, this was something, it was spectacular because it was like on the edge to porn. And I remember that Juergen told me—

JK: It was actually porn, darling. It was, like we got deemed as hardcore pornography—

MK: But there were people, like real people who had to paint some of the genitals, black, etc, because it was too hot. But I felt this idea of all these combinations and references in this one story and how nevertheless beautiful it looked and how smart it looked and very somehow intellectual. I really loved the story very much.

And it was disruptive as well for me, just to really understand, “Oh God, oh God, what do I see there?” You know, it was challenging at the same time.

JK: We should be more on podcasts. You never say such nice things about the magazine.

Oh, see, there you go. I’m doing my service.

JK: Yes, thank you, Dan. 

You’re welcome. 

JK: No, I think like stories, it’s hard to say, but I think the defining moments were like, we have big dossiers, like cover dossiers are always 40 pages long.

So, they’re like in-depth takes. And like one, I remember it’s on Raf Simons or Comme des Garçons or Helmut Lang. I think these are like really, the Helmut Lang, these are like really quintessential pieces. And they’re stocked in libraries. People pay a fortune for them, et cetera. But also like individual stories. I remember that we worked out a story on Steven Meisel, a big reportage, and then like printing all his Vogue Italia covers. That’s like how we got him, because hundreds of them, we printed them in a big fold out, or we had Rem Koolhaas of OMA and the history of Europe. And that was like a 32 page fold-out of a diagram stream of the history of Europe.

So there are lots of features that pushed the boundaries of what a traditional magazine can do or should do, etc.

And Maria, the fall winter collection is called Suspicious Minds. And it’s described as anti-Zeitgeist uniforms, by someone. Tell us about this collection.

MK: Suspicious Minds. So actually it all started with a traditional festive phenomenon, I would say, in the Alps where guys would wear monster outfits to—I don’t know how to really explain it in English. Joerg, maybe you can help me out—to say goodbye to the bad and welcome the new. It’s like this typical scenario of what you do in this folkloric context, where when the year is changing, you get rid of the old and welcome the new. So this was the idea, this Alps scenario. And what I figured out about the traditional garments that they are wearing to do the celebration, they are highly sexual, I felt this is very interesting.

So the idea of a dirndl is really all about the waist and the chest. And for the boys, it’s about the decoration and the crotch. So when you see this as a traditional moment and put this then in the more modern context or even destructed context, it becomes something anti-Zeitgeist, because it’s a quite old system deconstructed in something newer. This was super interesting to me. And then the song “Suspicious Minds,” Elvis Presley was following the same idea, even when you’re suspicious, even when you don’t trust, why don’t we look to the future and try it anyways, and try it again. And this idea of maybe hope even, with a little bit sex appeal. So, this is what it’s about, Suspicious Minds for me.

And for next spring, the collection is called I Would Prefer Not To, which I love as a title, which has some references to this global obsession with conservatism and nationalism and things like that. What is this collection about, Maria?

MK: It’s a little bit for myself, not an irritating collection, but a collection which marks a certain clean slate for myself. Like where I just felt, I don’t want to do this kind of—it’s more internal, something that you do when you do collections and then want to sell them to a bigger audience, you do, for example, like a collection framework. You have to fulfill certain boxes of, this is the price point, this is the sizing, this is that, so actually what you do is you really design into an Excel sheet.

And of course, this is then underlined by numbers, by research, etc. And I just felt, I just don’t want to. I just don’t want to. So I decided to quit a lot of these boxes and be much more, I would say, sensitive and quiet with the design itself. Don’t do loud merchandise-y shirts with prints and logos. Focus much more on the quality and this is the result.

And I don’t want to make a show because I felt it was what’s going on right now in the world, like politically speaking, I just don’t feel I want to do a show now and I don’t want to be loud right now. So all this combined was, I prefer not to.

Yeah, it’s sort of a phenomenon that I think a lot of people are having in the States, that people are just checking out, as you might say. Like, stepping back and not wanting to engage or just sticking their head in the sand a little bit and just trying to observe and absorb and take a little bit of a break, and try to start something new in some sense or tuning out in a sense.

MK: Absolutely.

JK: I would like to interject here. I don’t think it was like about disengaging, but simply when you have different choices, that you then make an active choice of not doing this because you’re going somewhere else.

MK: It’s absolutely right. But there is definitely like—or there was, it’s now somehow it comes to an end, I work now on a new collection—but a need to just organize my point of views as well. Point of views of how I see the world, how I see fashion, how I see myself in this context. But you’re totally right, Joerg. It’s an active choice to not join.

And Joerg, part of the collection’s notes speaks about this need for a counterculture. I was wondering from your viewpoint, what is the real counterculture today? Does that even exist anymore?

JK: No, I don’t think, well, I don’t know. It probably exists in certain fringes of the world. But I think we use counterculture probably not in the historical sense of saying, “Okay, this is like the classic underground,”or something like that. We’re not interested in that anymore. But I think like counterculture in the truest sense, you know, like something opposing the current culture, in terms of offering an alternative, in terms of having an opposing view, etc.

MK: And in terms of sensitivity, this is totally missing. So just to add this.

Tell me about that sensitivity.

JK: Sensitivity, what is this?

Like sensitivity to what?

MK: I will tell you exactly. And we’re discussing this, actually, Joerg and I are sitting every morning. We name it the war room, actually, it’s so not war. We’re sitting there in the most beautiful living room, dogs around, garden in front. And we talk about like what will happen in the day, blah, blah. So, the idea of, I can’t pronounce this in English, denunciation?

Denunciation.

MK: Yeah, everybody has a strong opinion. Everybody is not really—not everybody—but a lot of people don’t respect an opinion that they might not like, etc. And I feel the idea of sensitivity, of the gentleness of stepping back to let another opinion or movement, person, cross by is totally missing. And to insist on that, and to go back to this could be a part as well of a counterculture, because it’s a totally different approach from what I see as an average today.

Joerg, do you agree with that?

MK: Yeah, come on, nein, no.

(SPONSOR BREAK)

And, you know, people talk a lot about the fashion system today, the quote-unquote system, and how it needs reform, and how it’s broken, and how designers are pushed to their limit and producing too much, and companies are producing too much, and there seems to be not that much changing from what the public can discern.

How do you guys see fashion as an industry evolving in this moment? Even though I would consider you guys probably on the more cutting edge of it, from maybe the gap back here in the States, a mass market brand. How do you see fashion evolving in 2025 and maybe how 032c fits into that?

MK: That’s a somehow complicated question. I do think that it’s only changeable if needed. Somehow when the initiators really are doing the change and feel that they’re not interested in that anymore. Meaning that a high-profile designer is rather quitting the millions of money he gets as a payment instead of producing 12 collections, because he’s not interested in this quantity and that he’s maybe more interested in quality.

But this is an ethical approach, I would say, and it has to start from the core, and I don’t think that the audience outside or the consumer can really change that.

JK: Well, I think they already changed it by not buying it.

Oh, okay. Tell me a little bit more.

MK: Yeah, but this is something different. It’s not a change, it’s a pressure system. But I don’t think so, that this is really… They don’t buy right now, like in general, goods. It’s not a specific fashion industry momentum. They don’t buy cars, they don’t buy, I don’t know, houses or whatsoever because everybody is right now concerned with spending money. When they spend money, it’s about their own well-being, like very “me, my little self, and I,” right? But this is something different. So what we are trying to do right now, because we see this too, we try to focus even more on what is really important to produce and to put out there.

I feel this is already a take and that I don’t need in my collection, for example, 10 little black dresses. It’s okay when I have one little black dress, you know? So this is already a different take.

JK: Well, I think what you call the system is almost on the verge of imploding. Like wherever you look, at any corner, I think there are huge problems, you know, whether in the retail sector, whether young brands or emerging brands can actually develop, etc. How the big houses treat the customer with all the price increases. And I think a general problem is, you know, when I got into fashion, there were certain brands I was able to believe in.

And I think that lacks at the moment. How many brands out there or how many fashion designers out there, where you actually believe them, you know? And I think that’s a big problem. And the general paradox, I feel, is that fashion has become so important—I mean, that has always been our stake with the magazine—has become so important that you need fashion to sell cars, to sell holidays, to sell architecture. But that the actual fashion has become quite meaningless. Like how many people are actually deeply caring about a fashion garment or a fashion brand, etc., you know? So that’s like something that the so-called system probably needs to solve in the long run.

And when you say you needed to believe in a fashion label, what did you mean by that? Can you elaborate?

JK: Well, I think like belief in terms of that you don’t have the feeling that you get ripped off, that you feel a certain sincerity in the things, that you understand what this label stands for compared to the other. What we have instead, obviously, is like merchandising across all brands that’s very similar. You know, like if somebody sees clunky boots are working, then like within months everybody else has these boots, just as an example. Like the specifics of each brand are kind of gone. Or is that too dark, Maria? What do you think?

MK: No, no, I’m thinking about it. You know what you are doing? You’re describing a brand a little bit as if it would be a party, which is super interesting, you know, where a point of view is described, defined. And I’m just wondering why this happened. Of course, like when, for example, J.W. Anderson was flipping from brand to brand to brand to brand, he is still one of the smartest by far. Of course, what it does is—and it would be then the same in a party when somebody would jump from…

So they’re more like DJs, not like parties.

MK: No, no, no, no. Political parties, I mean.

Oh, political parties. Oh, OK. I thought you meant like a party party.

MK: I don’t mean…I don’t talk about dancing. No, no, political parties.

OK, political parties.

MK: Oh, I see.

MK: Sorry, guys. Not a dancing party. So this was my point.

What do you think about that, Joerg? Does that track for you?

JK: I think Maria needs to extrapolate this point. Like, I’m not really—

MK: When you talk about it, to believe in something, a certain system, a system within this brand saying that there’s a certain ethos of how to communicate to the consumer, how to value a garment, how to create the aesthetics around what kind of people would be gifted with the garments, you know, blah, blah, blah. This whole thing, this is a little own cosmos where you then feel connected to where you feel this is not a ripoff, this is something I really can bond to.

And this is the same when you, when you see like, just when you take a look at the politics, it would be quite irritating when someone from an economic party would jump, what they do right now, would jump then to a right-wing party and jump right away. You then feel, I don’t know what I want to vote for here, so that you just shut down and don’t care anymore. And you end up at Uniqlo. I know, it’s not a party there though.

And speaking of that, 032c is this pinnacle of something, for lack of a better word, it’s an entrepreneurial success of something extremely cool, right? It’s such a great example for someone to hold up and say, look at what was possible using culture and pushing boundaries and publishing to be something very successful and that has lasted a long time.

And so a lot of cities are going through—urban centers where these things happen—are going through a crisis, right? Affordability, housing over tourism. And since Berlin is so kind of connected with the history of 032c, do you think if you had moved to Berlin today in 2025, that doing something like 032c would have been possible or would you maybe had a completely different approach?

How do you feel about this change?

JK: Yes, I think, no, I mean, like, it would be something completely different. And again, it was like a lucky historical situation. You know, you never had a capital in the Western world that was underperforming financially, economically than the rest of the Republic. Normally a capital is always the most expensive part in a country. And in Germany back then, that was not the case. So the economical situation, I think, was like extremely defining the situation 032c.

Also, like the climate in Berlin, obviously, is people don’t give a shit about you. So if you do great stuff, nobody cares. If you do shitty stuff, also nobody cared at that time.

So, you had time to grow. And like the reason why 032c still exists, because like, I was contemplating back then always to move to London or New York, was because in Berlin, there were simply no jobs. So doing 032c in London or New York would have gotten me most likely a job within three issues.

Within three issues with financial pressure would have been so intense that it would have been impossible to do this like, almost like nonprofit publication back then. You know, so Berlin was enabled a certain melange of like stupidity and ambition and fostered that for quite a while. And that kind of made the publication so strong. You know, it’s not like a mood board publication. People see the history, people see the legacy, people see the traces, how it develops. It doesn’t come from nowhere.

And at any point in the history of the brand, when you guys were doing quite well and were no longer struggling, did anyone come knocking on the door trying to, not hire you per se, but to acquire the whole thing and maybe corporatize it in a sense?

MK: Yes, but different…So, Joerg and I, we did consultancies and as well that people were interested in the whole thing. But especially Joerg, I think it’s always very straight from the beginning. There is just no interest, right? In giving authority completely away.

JK: I think it’s a beautiful thing to be like a lifer, you know, you do something and you just go on. But like the reason is normally, like when you look back, okay, 25 years next year, it’s a long time, like a quarter century. You would think that in a world where people change jobs every once a year or once every two years, that must be boring.

No, it’s a dream job you have created because every time something gets boring, I can change it, you know? But also having said that, I worked at different places. I was the founding editor-in-chief of a German interview magazine in 2012. Then, I was editor-in-chief at Essence and created, they have a framework for editorial within retail. But all these things, like feedback to 032c, and I learned from all these things massively. 

But like, there’s like enough changes in between. But now with fashion, that’s like a major part and that’s just, as I said, it’s not rocket science, but it’s really complicated. Because you have creativity, logistics, production and everything needs to be synchronized and it’s lots of stuff to have.

MK: Yeah, and I mean, fashion is not, I wouldn’t say it’s an interim, but it’s like another starting point for the next steps we’re already working on. So, we are quite good in, I don’t know, I assume it’s just our character that we feel magazine is very a quite iconic place. Fashion, did these three shows now in January the 4th in Paris, which is amazing. This was a goal. And the next ambition is around the corner already. So, we managed to stay very busy and under pressure. And I think this is as well why it’s, for us, still feels still fresh and very entrepreneurial every day.

Now, moving forward with your fashion line, from what I understand, you’ve broken it down into two main parts, a workshop collection and then a ready-to-wear collection. Can you explain the difference between the two and what we’ll be finding in both and when?

JK: So, basically, what we have, what we realized is that we want to radicalize the offerings we have. And that means, because of a historic development within 032c to see how we started, like with merch T-shirts and then gradually increasing complexities, having ready-to-wear. And essentially, in the past years, it was all contained in one collection.

And now we’re splitting it up and having the workshop line just for classic 032c merch products. And it will be more experimental, more fun, a more direct approach with vintage newspapers, editions by artists, books, vases, all mixed together under the workshop line. And that’s being only sold in our stores in Berlin and Seoul as well online. So it’s very direct to consumer play. And then the ready-to-wear line will be even more elevated and that will be distributed in a classic wholesale way.

And what was the reasoning to feel like you needed to radicalize this? It grew to a certain point where it needed to, I don’t know, what’s the term in biology? When a cell gets too big, it divides? I’m forgetting the word.

MK: No, it’s more about organizing. As far as organizing, for me, the starting point was organizing references. And then Joerg created a business model out of this need.

So where I felt as a rave kid, yes, I do love T-shirts with white prints. And yes, I do understand a certain price point, but how can I combine a certain price point T-shirt where I totally see the need for with, let’s say, a silk plissé evening gown, where I see the need for as well. And for me, it was always complicated to really get this together and to not become a brand that’s doing this rip-off just to explain the price of the silk gown, to make a T-shirt for 800 euros. And this is why we decided to have this better structured, right?

JK: And also just to have the energy, like the energy of the workshop line of printed T-shirts, of people being able to buy it, that’s also key to it.

That sounds fantastic. When does this shift take place?

MK: I mean, latest in January, we have the next show. And the plan is that the workshop starts latest end of November, beginning December for this Christmas festive season.

And is it about growing the fashion business and that brand? Or is it about moving into something, you know… an 032c restaurant?

MK: No, no, it’s all about to make the brand bigger. 

From a fashion point of view.

MK:

JK: Yeah, I think there’s a huge potential opportunity for us, like with fashion brands. You know, there’s nothing since Jil Sander in Germany, there hasn’t been a brand that’s been creatively and commercially relevant, you know, coming out of Germany. And I feel this is super exciting.

And there are so many young creatives out there, many that listen to this podcast that want to start their own enterprise in some way. Maybe it’s a magazine, maybe it’s a fashion label or a gallery, or whatever it is. What would be your piece of advice to that 25 year old maybe, who was born around the time that 032c was started and they’re out of school and they want to do something fun and creative, and maybe they just move to London or New York or Berlin.

What would your advice be to that person?

JK: Oh, thank you. I mean, like, we’re very bad at giving advice. We’re speaking with people when people come, we meet with them and talk through and give production help and stuff like that. But like those smashy two-liners, like believe in yourself, we can’t do that, right?

MK: I can.

Yeah?

MK: Yeah, of course.

Yeah, Maria, go ahead. What’s your two-liner?

MK: Take yourself serious. When you say you want to do it, then do it. And really do it.

And doing it means 20 years or 10 years, how long it ever takes. I feel a lot of people don’t take themselves seriously and don’t really consider what it means when they say, I want to be a fashion designer. Of course, but then do it.

Do the pattern work, do the sewing, do the struggling, do the half a year, like not only potatoes because the velvet is so beautiful. But you know, this is what I mean with take yourself and your dream serious. I think this is super important.

JK: That’s beautiful. I should remember that.

MK: Boom!

JK: No, that’s true. You know, it’s really about a commitment, a commitment to the cause, but also a commitment to yourself, as Maria said. That’s like the best thing. Yeah.

And let me ask you this, 032c, let’s say we get in a time machine and we go into the future and 032c is no longer around, but there’s a history book, like an encyclopedia, and very early on, because it starts with a zero, we find 032c and there’s a small entry that says what it was. 032c, what is it?

JK: Zeitgenossenschaft. That was also like a title of an issue from a long time ago, but I think 032c is about really being yourself with the time you’re in. If you can translate… you speak German, Dan.

I do not speak German. No, I grew up listening to it.

JK: Okay, zeitgenossenschaft, I think is something important, like that you engage with the time you live in. Right, Maria?

MK: Yeah.

JK: She says I didn’t make a convincing case.

MK: No, it sounds good, but it’s like not, yeah, no, yeah.

Maria, how would you write that entry into the history books of 032c?

MK: I really don’t know. I’m so not into retrospective thinking, or we really trained ourselves to not be in this.

JK: No, I mean, like legacy management is not our forte, I would say.

Thank you to my guests, Joerg and Maria, and their entire team at 032c for making this episode happen. The editor of The Grand Tourist is Stan Hall. To keep this going, don’t forget to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter, The Grand Tourist Curator at thegrandtourist.net and follow me on Instagram @danrubinstein and follow The Grand Tourist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen and leave us a rating or comment. Every little bit helps. Til next time!

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