Sia Arnika’s Berlin Fashion Week (BFW) shows tend to be a spectacle.
Last season, there were live flies buzzing around breeding boxes. For Autumn/Winter 2025, the set was a recreation of a fish auction house in Denmark, where the designer grew up. Show-goers could smell the salty scent of the seaweed, which was scattered on the floors between piles of snow (created using soap foam).
“I’ve been in contact with Danish fish auctions to see if we can borrow some things for the set, and my parents are driving down from Denmark and collecting little things from the beach to add in,” says Arnika ahead of her show. “It’s all hands on deck for these collections, which I’m so appreciative of because you can’t do this on your own as a small brand.”
It’s been a tough few years for independent brands, even more so for those outside of the four biggest fashion capitals — New York, London, Milan and Paris. BFW is still relatively small, but is growing fast thanks to investment from the German government, which has propped up its revival.
Arnika, who founded her brand in 2020 and debuted at BFW for AW23, is part of Fashion Council Germany’s main emerging talent programme Berlin Contemporary, which offers designers €25,000 each season, along with support for communications, show design, network connections and sales, as well as PR contacts. Arnika, who has become a schedule mainstay, says the support has allowed her to go bigger on her show concepts for the week’s growing international audience.
