KATRIN EILS works from a small studio in Frankfurt am Main, where the collection is built around one wall of skirts and one shelf of knits. There are five skirts in the shop, an animal print midi, a belted mini with pockets, two plaids in brown and the red lace-hem maxi, and three cable knits with a hood in green and white. The wall is arranged by print rather than by length, because that is how people actually choose: two patterns side by side, one of them visibly quieter. Nothing here is added to reach a round number, and each piece is described by its rise and its finished length.
The cloth is chosen before the shape. A plaid has to be woven tightly enough that a seam does not open when the skirt is sat on, and the floral is printed on a ground heavy enough to hold an elastic waist without gathering into a drawstring. Cable comes next: the hood is cut from a slightly denser knit than the body so it keeps its shape when it is worn down, and the rib at the hem is worked half a gauge tighter than the sleeve so the front does not ride up over a waistband. Where a print sits on the panel is decided at this stage too, not after cutting.
Every garment is closed and opened repeatedly before it is approved. Zips are cycled a dozen times, buttons are pushed through their holes until the thread shows a little stretch, and an elastic waist is released and left for an hour to see whether it returns. Skirts are hung for a day after hemming, so anything that drops does it in the studio rather than in a wardrobe. This is slow work, and it is the only way to be sure a print still lines up once the piece has been worn. A rejected zip is kept in a drawer as a reminder of what failed.
Orders are packed flat by hand. A skirt is folded once at the side seam, a knit is rolled with paper at the cable, and both are wrapped so nothing presses into the surface on the way. The card inside states the rise, the unstretched waist and the length, because those are the numbers most questions are about. If a measurement is not listed, it is taken at the table and sent the same day. The studio answers its own emails, and the person who packed the parcel is the person who replies. Paper is chosen for the weight of the piece, so a maxi is not crushed under its own fold.