Bernhard Willhelm is a German fashion designer famed for his provocative acts, humour, the absurd and mixing of genres. Born in Ulm in 1972, he studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. While still a student he worked as an assistant to various leading names in the fashion world, including Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, Walter Van Beirendonck and Dirk Bikkembergs. He graduated in 1998 and created his own brand the very same year.

By March 1999 Bernhard Willhelm was presenting his first women’s collection during the Paris Fashion Week. Inspired by the Black Forest, close to the designer’s birthplace, this collection already displayed all the typical features of his very personal libertarian style: a humorous approach to fashion, a blend of folklore and urban culture, close attention to detail, embroidery, craft techniques, prints and accessories.

Bernhard Willhelm’s world, devoid of any cynical calculation, a subtle blend of poetic and banal references with a new and highly coloured stylistic and graphic register, soon drew the attention of the press and purchasers. In 2000 he launched his first men’s collection, and in 2002 he decided to transfer his workshops from Antwerp to Paris. In the same year he was also appointed artistic director of the Italian brand Capucci and guest editor of B, the second issue of the avant-garde journal ABC, published in Antwerp.

Willhelm has received numerous awards for his unusual, provocative approach to fashion. In 2001 he won the Moët & Chandon Fashion Award, and in 2005 he received the ANDAM (Association Nationale pour le Développement des Arts et de la Mode) accessory prize from the French Minister of Culture.

In 2003 he presented his personal vision of the links between fashion and art in the Moderne Mode exhibition at the Ursula Blicke Foundation in Germany. In 2004 a book on Willhelm’s early career was published by Lukas & Sternberg. He has since continued to work in various directions, designing a school uniform for the orphans’ aid association Misericordia, launching his first shoe collection and creating an apparel line for the online sales site YOOX.com. He designed Björk’s clothing for her 2007 World Tour and the sculptural outfit the artist wore on the sleeve of her album Volta, in partnership with the photographer Nick Knight.

In 2006, Bernhard Willhelm opened his first flagship store in Tokyo, designed in partnership with Cyril Duval. In the same year he received the Great Indoors Award for the best shop design from Frame magazine.

Many other artistic partnerships have marked his rich and striking career, including an exhibition in Sweden with the Berlin artist Carsten Fock or costumes for a play in Berlin adapted from the work of Fassbinder.

A retrospective of Willhelm’s work, Het totaal rappel, was shown at the Antwerp Fashion Museum in 2007 and 2008. The exhibition and the book were designed together with the Swiss artists Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs, and the book won the Best-Looking Swiss Book Award. At the same time he presented the film Red rose pink donkey in partnership with Dirk Bonn at the Athens Biennale, and in 2008 he presented Nick Knight’s film Men in tights during the New York Fashion Week.

In 2008 Bernhard Willhelm launched a line of shoes together with Camper, entitled Bernhard Willhelm-Camper-together. In 2009 and 2010 a new retrospective exhibition at the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands retraced his career and that of his associate Jutta Kraus.