Rewrite
There are some days – actually, many days – where I don’t want to dress to accentuate or showcase my human form. Instead, I want to float through space as an orb-like shape. I’ve always called these “orb days”, but I’d never found a brand that entirely catered to them – until I visited the Melitta Baumeister studio in Queens, New York. Shortly after meeting the co-owners of the brand, Melitta Baumeister and Michal Plata, we started talking about fashion as shapes. Baumeister was wearing one of the brand’s signature pointy, pleated caps on the top of her head. “You don’t need to feel like you’re presenting your body – it’s more you’re presenting a shape,” said Baumeister. According to Plata, the co-owners have a saying they’ve started to use more frequently: “You bring your body, we bring the shape.”
Melitta Baumeister is a brand founded and based in New York in 2013 by German designer Baumeister. Plata, a Polish designer, joined the brand in 2017, and when speaking with the couple, it became clear that they bonded over their love of conceptual ideas and interesting forms. They met at Germany’s Pforzheim University School of Design in 2000: she was studying fashion, and he was studying car design. They respected each other’s work but didn’t start dating until after graduation, when Plata was in Munich and Baumeister was visiting Poland from New York to produce a collection. “We just lost contact, but then there was Poland backgrounds suddenly instead of New York on her Instagram stories,” says Plata. They reconnected against snowy backdrops and frozen lakes. “It felt like a Roy Anderson movie,” says Baumeister.
Plata’s journey into fashion was unconventional but not entirely unrelated to his studies. Once he transitioned from cars to clothes, he found “so many similarities” in terms of shape and treating surface. “My biggest interest in cars was the idea of status: when you drove up to the opera and everyone knew,” he says. “But those moments don’t exist anymore, and I think fashion, in many ways, takes over that space where you can present yourself.” On the other end, Baumeister’s journey into fashion was clear from a young age, although she now uses her sewing skills in unexpected ways. “I was probably 13 when I started sewing because my mum was a tailor herself, so she had a lot of fabrics around,” she says. “I loved the craft aspect of it.”
At 16, Baumeister went to a tailoring school for three years before deciding to study fashion. “My mum introduced me to a lady who was by chance a fashion designer and she said, ‘What I do is I change people’s lives because people transform themselves with clothing’. I always thought that was interesting, so one thing led to another.” With this, Baumeister is being humble – she ended up with an MFA degree in Fashion Design and Society at Parsons. Then her Parsons collection debuted at New York Fashion Week AW14, supported by VFiles and carried by Dover Street Market. In 2023, Melitta Baumeister was crowned the winner of the 19th CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund and, in January 2025, won a Cooper Hewitt National Design Award.
“After VFiles, Mel Ottenberg said ‘Hey, can you bring your whole collection down to my office?’ I was so broke I just brought one jacket on the train with me” – Melitta Baumeister
When asked if she envisioned herself continuing to live and design in New York, Baumeister laughs. She says that before her graduate show, she never intended to develop her own brand. “I was like ‘I’ll never be able to afford this, this is over my head’. I always thought I would just study here,” she continues. ”I never even brought a proper bed.” But once Dover Street Market bought her first collection, she had to go into production. Then, Rihanna and Lady Gaga’s teams requested pieces. Baumeister wasn’t prepared: she almost said no to Rihanna. “After VFiles, Mel Ottenberg said ‘Hey, can you bring your whole collection down to my office?’” she says. “I was so broke from making the collection that I just brought one jacket on the train with me.” Both Rihanna and Gaga wore oversized coats from Baumeister in 2015, cementing her future as a New York designer.
Baumeister and Plata assure me they’ve bought a proper bed and some furniture now. In their studio, there are casts of Baumeister’s face lying around, used for an elaborate Dover Street Market mannequin. Plata calls them “mini Melittas”. Still, many people aren’t aware that the brand is based in New York, so they’ve started adding “New York City” under their logo on tags and accessories. “It’s felt organic growing here because it’s step by step, but growing a brand in New York is very tough,” says Baumeister. “You have to wear all the hats from pattern making to sewing and just technical skills.” They went back to New York Fashion Week for SS25, the first time since the brand’s VFiles debut, and presented the AW25 collection at a showroom during Paris Fashion Week last month – a format the brand has mostly stuck with since 2015.
Melitta Baumeister’s AW25 collection is – in the words of Baumeister herself – mellow and muted but ready for resistance. “This season wasn’t about creating fantasy shapes with key looks that aren’t wearable and have a futuristic feel,” she says. “We’re wearing darker colours in darker times.” As with all her designs, each garment still creates whimsical shapes; they are just thoroughly wearable. “I think the shapes portray strength while having a calmness to them,” Plata adds. “As designers, we have to respond to what is happening; we can’t pretend the world isn’t burning, so these are bold statements with a feeling of protectiveness.” He then points to the strong shoulders, pleated fronts and zigzag shapes across their studio as protective layers.
Sometimes, a shape is just a shape, but sometimes it’s an orb, a defensive shield between you and the spaces you inhabit. For Baumeister, this starts with draping fabric, looking at it in the mirror and then altering it until it morphs into something surprising. “I want that small surprise effect when you try it on,” she says. “It was always really important that the person who wears it already speaks a language of walking in somewhere and presenting a new form.” As Baumeister and Plata continue building the brand in New York, they say they feel lucky to have made it to this point, connecting with others who share the same joy from their shapes. The key is that you have to try them on to understand the brand. “Sometimes it looks scary on the hanger,” says Plata.
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There are some days – actually, many days – where I don’t want to dress to accentuate or showcase my human form. Instead, I want to float through space as an orb-like shape. I’ve always called these “orb days”, but I’d never found a brand that entirely catered to them – until I visited the Melitta Baumeister studio in Queens, New York. Shortly after meeting the co-owners of the brand, Melitta Baumeister and Michal Plata, we started talking about fashion as shapes. Baumeister was wearing one of the brand’s signature pointy, pleated caps on the top of her head. “You don’t need to feel like you’re presenting your body – it’s more you’re presenting a shape,” said Baumeister. According to Plata, the co-owners have a saying they’ve started to use more frequently: “You bring your body, we bring the shape.”
Melitta Baumeister is a brand founded and based in New York in 2013 by German designer Baumeister. Plata, a Polish designer, joined the brand in 2017, and when speaking with the couple, it became clear that they bonded over their love of conceptual ideas and interesting forms. They met at Germany’s Pforzheim University School of Design in 2000: she was studying fashion, and he was studying car design. They respected each other’s work but didn’t start dating until after graduation, when Plata was in Munich and Baumeister was visiting Poland from New York to produce a collection. “We just lost contact, but then there was Poland backgrounds suddenly instead of New York on her Instagram stories,” says Plata. They reconnected against snowy backdrops and frozen lakes. “It felt like a Roy Anderson movie,” says Baumeister.
Plata’s journey into fashion was unconventional but not entirely unrelated to his studies. Once he transitioned from cars to clothes, he found “so many similarities” in terms of shape and treating surface. “My biggest interest in cars was the idea of status: when you drove up to the opera and everyone knew,” he says. “But those moments don’t exist anymore, and I think fashion, in many ways, takes over that space where you can present yourself.” On the other end, Baumeister’s journey into fashion was clear from a young age, although she now uses her sewing skills in unexpected ways. “I was probably 13 when I started sewing because my mum was a tailor herself, so she had a lot of fabrics around,” she says. “I loved the craft aspect of it.”
At 16, Baumeister went to a tailoring school for three years before deciding to study fashion. “My mum introduced me to a lady who was by chance a fashion designer and she said, ‘What I do is I change people’s lives because people transform themselves with clothing’. I always thought that was interesting, so one thing led to another.” With this, Baumeister is being humble – she ended up with an MFA degree in Fashion Design and Society at Parsons. Then her Parsons collection debuted at New York Fashion Week AW14, supported by VFiles and carried by Dover Street Market. In 2023, Melitta Baumeister was crowned the winner of the 19th CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund and, in January 2025, won a Cooper Hewitt National Design Award.
“After VFiles, Mel Ottenberg said ‘Hey, can you bring your whole collection down to my office?’ I was so broke I just brought one jacket on the train with me” – Melitta Baumeister
When asked if she envisioned herself continuing to live and design in New York, Baumeister laughs. She says that before her graduate show, she never intended to develop her own brand. “I was like ‘I’ll never be able to afford this, this is over my head’. I always thought I would just study here,” she continues. ”I never even brought a proper bed.” But once Dover Street Market bought her first collection, she had to go into production. Then, Rihanna and Lady Gaga’s teams requested pieces. Baumeister wasn’t prepared: she almost said no to Rihanna. “After VFiles, Mel Ottenberg said ‘Hey, can you bring your whole collection down to my office?’” she says. “I was so broke from making the collection that I just brought one jacket on the train with me.” Both Rihanna and Gaga wore oversized coats from Baumeister in 2015, cementing her future as a New York designer.
Baumeister and Plata assure me they’ve bought a proper bed and some furniture now. In their studio, there are casts of Baumeister’s face lying around, used for an elaborate Dover Street Market mannequin. Plata calls them “mini Melittas”. Still, many people aren’t aware that the brand is based in New York, so they’ve started adding “New York City” under their logo on tags and accessories. “It’s felt organic growing here because it’s step by step, but growing a brand in New York is very tough,” says Baumeister. “You have to wear all the hats from pattern making to sewing and just technical skills.” They went back to New York Fashion Week for SS25, the first time since the brand’s VFiles debut, and presented the AW25 collection at a showroom during Paris Fashion Week last month – a format the brand has mostly stuck with since 2015.
Melitta Baumeister’s AW25 collection is – in the words of Baumeister herself – mellow and muted but ready for resistance. “This season wasn’t about creating fantasy shapes with key looks that aren’t wearable and have a futuristic feel,” she says. “We’re wearing darker colours in darker times.” As with all her designs, each garment still creates whimsical shapes; they are just thoroughly wearable. “I think the shapes portray strength while having a calmness to them,” Plata adds. “As designers, we have to respond to what is happening; we can’t pretend the world isn’t burning, so these are bold statements with a feeling of protectiveness.” He then points to the strong shoulders, pleated fronts and zigzag shapes across their studio as protective layers.
Sometimes, a shape is just a shape, but sometimes it’s an orb, a defensive shield between you and the spaces you inhabit. For Baumeister, this starts with draping fabric, looking at it in the mirror and then altering it until it morphs into something surprising. “I want that small surprise effect when you try it on,” she says. “It was always really important that the person who wears it already speaks a language of walking in somewhere and presenting a new form.” As Baumeister and Plata continue building the brand in New York, they say they feel lucky to have made it to this point, connecting with others who share the same joy from their shapes. The key is that you have to try them on to understand the brand. “Sometimes it looks scary on the hanger,” says Plata.
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