It's only Rock'n'Roll but I like it... While last season it was Mick Jagger who inspired Lala Berlin founder Leyla Piedayesh for her collection, now it's his bandmate Keith Richards who acts as muse for Fall/Winter 2023. "Keith Richards represents for me a rebellion that is gentle and not aggressive, for simply living life individually and with a certain lightness, for a departure from expectations and conventions," says Leyla Piedayesh. She has interpreted the longing for all this in fashion terms and brought it into the year 2023.

Of course, it is the Keith Richards of the 70s that has inspired the new Lala Berlin collection in terms of style. Wide stripe patterns or animal prints like zebra and leopard are as reminiscent of the musician as rich materials like velvet and devoré. A potpourri of diverse influences that is relaxed and elegant at the same time. Tailoring, for example, adds pleasing elastic and a caftan jacket is tied in a relaxed way with a belt. A fuchsia ensemble of bootcut pants and corduroy shirt is as much a part of the collection as a black satin trench coat with subtle ruffles across the back and sleeves. All this tells of the freedom to dress emotionally, to express feelings outwardly through one's own style.

The whole thing lives on juxtapositions, driven by the eternal fascination of the love story between Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg. In the Lala Berlin collection for fall/winter 2023, this is expressed in a symbiosis of typically masculine and typically feminine connotations, naturally fused. If Keith and Anita were already happy to swap their wardrobes some 50 years ago, why should we be restricted by gender roles today? The collection is shown on models read female as well as male, and this is not unusual for Leyla Piedayesh, but natural.

A certain grounding and calm pervades the designs, it does not live on wild pattern mixes, but on monochromatic ensembles, such as an orange leather suit (made of vegan, ecofriendly leather, of course). Because only those who rest in themselves can be truly free. But the sleek minimalism in places of the designs for Fall/Winter 2023 has another reason: in addition to Keith Richards, fashion designer Halston, also an icon of the Seventies, has also influenced the new Lala Berlin collection - his flowing silhouettes as well as his way of rethinking the interplay between body and clothing and thus cuts. A ruffled bodycon maxi dress is as telling of this as a bias-cut satin skirt and matching blouse with accentuated shoulders.

"I just can't help it: I love the Seventies and keep mentally returning to them," says Lala Berlin founder Leyla Piedayesh. "The glamour of the time, the eccentricity and the desire for freedom are timeless themes for me that can be translated into fashion over and over again - in a modern way." An eternal party girl at heart, Piedayesh has also remained so since the 90s until today, which is why she has drawn on Studio 54 as inspiration just as much as her youth, when the 70s were once great fashion inspiration.

Thus, Lala Berlin's Fall/Winter 2023 collection features pieces that unite these two decades, such as a bomber jacket with the Persian print Lala Berlin is known for, or a maxi-length (fake) shearling coat with traditional embroidery that could have come straight out of the famous movie "Almost Famous". And of course, inspirations from Leyla Piedayesh's native Iran play a role in her work as always, now, in these times, more than ever.

That, too, is a bridge to Keith Richards and co. who drew stylistic inspiration from Middle Eastern cultures. The courageous protests in Piedayesh's homeland are the best example of the fact that freedom can never be taken for granted - and that we should celebrate and cherish it, love it and savor it, if only in gentle fashionable rebellion.

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