When you’re a designer, you never know when inspiration might strike. Take Hardlump’s Johann Ehrhardt, for example. Little did he realize that his fall 2026 collection would fall into place when he agreed to help a friend of his move to Libretre 65 in Berlin’s Schönberg neighborhood. In terms of Berlin, this is a pretty famous address: the birthplace of Marlene Dietrich. “I stood in front of the building, and thought, ‘This is great,'” Ehrard recalled. “I went around the house taking pictures. And then I thought about how I have so many friends who are actors and dancers, and I started thinking about how I wanted to cast them for this show.”
Which explains why he’s saying all this backstage at the Wintergarten Verritt Theater, another venue made famous by Dietrich, who performed there in 1920s Berlin, at a time when the city, the country, and indeed the world, were dancing on the edge of a volcano. So, right now, for the fall of 2026, Dietrich — androgynous, tailored, glamorous — is there to a greater or lesser degree: the way the shoulder-stitching jits tuck into the waist, and about it, and about it, and with it, because of it, and all of it, and all of it, and all of it, and all of it. Five of the theater staff themselves. .
Yet what Ehrhardt really had in mind was a desire to make Heather Lump a little more mature, less street. Strike a different note, hit a new beat. “We had to try something different, because otherwise, it could be boring: same style, same silhouette,” he said.
Truth be told, it feels like Ehrard has been moving from grit to glamor for a while now, but this collection definitely hit a bigger note, not least because she swapped the usual urban storm-and-drag for a theatrical red velvet coat. But it was all in her clothes, from the ever-so-slightly distressed leather outerwear that still exudes polish, to the pinstriped suit (vs. Marilyn) whose lines curved across the body and caught many men’s eyes, while women sparkled and sparkled in diamonds.
