00:00Dark, sleek, an eye for detail. The essence of Denis Choueni's designs.
00:07Presenting his collections, however, always poses a challenge for the South African fashion designer.
00:13Whether on the catwalk at Berlin Fashion Week or just in his own showroom,
00:18it's never certain that all his pieces will be ready on time.
00:21It's a struggle not just to meet the deadline, but also with depression.
00:25It was a rollercoaster, especially in the past three days, and most importantly yesterday because I didn't sleep.
00:33It took the wind out of me, but I'm quite happy. The turnout is amazing.
00:37People are here. Clothes look great. I've got great compliments. People want to get some.
00:43Denis has been living in Germany since 2017.
00:46The move to a new country paired with financial struggles brought on the depression.
00:51A real catch-22.
00:54With three weeks before the next show, Denis is working flat out on his designs.
01:01He's not satisfied just yet.
01:03He's nervous, anxious and constantly grappling with depression.
01:08How does the Berlin-based designer keep himself going?
01:12I force myself to wake up and I go to work. But if I'm alone here, I collapse to my own thoughts and there's a couch in the back.
01:22I've come in some mornings and I just curled up on the couch and I slept. Turned the lights off and I just sit in there in misery.
01:33For him work is a form of therapy. Every piece involves extensive handcraft. The visible white seams are one of his trademark features symbolizing the stitching of wounds. His signature style is deeply connected to wound healing.
01:48My design language is called string theory, right? It's inspired by scarification. That is a means of cutting into your skin and then when it heals, it protrudes. So the skin grows and then you can start feeling.
02:04African tribes also other tribes that do this as well. From that idea, I create strings. I take the string. That's what I call a string theory. And I embroider the details to resemble scarification.
02:17At his last show in 2024, Dennis got very personal. He used headphones to share his doubting and anxious thoughts with the audience. But was the audience ready for it?
02:30It didn't connect. I was so disappointed. I ran to the back and I collapsed. And I was in tears. My wife was comforting me because I had went for therapy for the show.
02:41To get all the truth, you know, to give a very genuine, vulnerable, authentic show. If there is bad press, if there's judgment, if there's a celebration, like I was prepared for both.
02:56And when neither happened, it just, it killed me. Like I, it destroyed me completely. I just went to a dark place and I, it took me a long time to come back out of it.
03:08Florian Müller knows what it's like. There's little room for these issues in the fashion world. The communications expert has been in the industry for over 20 years and launched the Mental Health in Fashion campaign. He gives talks on the topic all over the world.
03:25There are creatives who experience a lot of pressure in the industry. More and more collections are coming onto the market, creating extreme pressure. There's fierce competition and precarious situations in which people earn little to no money. For me, it's about raising awareness for mental health conditions and structures that make people sick.
03:47Dennis has learned to live with his condition. He's showing his latest collection in his own showroom, partly due to cost.
03:55It's mainly friends, family and closer clients who are invited. People who appreciate his work and understand his situation.
04:02Because it's a lot of hard work, a lot of hard work and I don't think people really appreciate that.
04:09Dennis does it all by himself from design to PR. Wow.
04:15There's a lot of things that happen behind the curtains. Maybe even they don't sleep, you know, trying to make a deadline.
04:22Today, in times of fast fashion, everyone demands everything super cheap and then something new tomorrow. And for true designers, that's pretty difficult.
04:34Despite his health and existential struggles, for Dennis Chueni, giving up is not an option.
04:43There's going to be some turbulence, there's going to be some hardship, there's going to be struggles and life is supposed to test you to make you stronger every single time.
04:53There's light at the end of the tunnel though. Soon, Dennis will present his fashion in Japan.
04:59That's a dream come true for him and it's given him confidence about the future.
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