One has small houses with colored façades, the river drowning the white cobblestone streets in light, the slow esplanades emerging from mirages, buildings and trees tilting on the terraced hills; the other has flat, open streets, nature cherished on every avenue, bicycles everywhere, quasi-permanent clouds painting the sky with white and silver-grey tones, forcing the sun to spin its light among the avenues, lakes, canals, shimmering, shimmering, shimmering.
Lisbon and Berlin are our cities, the cities that gave birth to, and foster, our brand. In both we grew as persons, made friends, made fashion, created companies, partied a little too much and sometimes fell in love against all reasonable advice. Figures, right?
And still they’re here, and we’re here with them, still amazed at their mysteries, both still feeling like home whenever we arrive – even when we find ourselves on streets and neighborhoods we’d never been before. Lisbon stumbles onto a spotlight it hasn’t grown accustomed to, giving everything it has with that unique Portuguese affection, tender and raw; Berlin is mighty and cool, riding high in its own idea of peak civilization, embracing everyone as equal, neither hiding nor withdrawing nothing from goals or desires, vast and rational, green and ever present.
Both cities are worlds apart from each other – and we love them both. Together, they shaped our ideas and me realize that, more than being German by birth, or Portuguese by adoption, I’m an European citizen.
Much like our brand: it drinks from both cultures and from the states of being, light and time of both. Our style embodies this symbiosis between the Mediterranean spirit, filled with longing – saudade – and the German clear notion of logical design, forever trying to reach fashion zeitgeist; as for our pieces, they are the product of the handmade expertise of Portuguese artisans combined with German state of the art paradigms on environment and conscious living.
Our goal at INA KOELLN is to create fashion as chic and timeless as Lisbon and Berlin. With these blueprints, we go forth: man, product and nature as the central pieces of our brand, with Berlin and Lisbon as our backdrop.
Both cities couldn’t be more different – in geography, architecture, people, rhythm, you name it. But they’re both unique, they’re both our home and they’re both beautiful, beautiful, beautiful; every day, forever, come what may.