LONDON — Laura Andraschko is a rockstar trapped in a designer’s body.
“I grew up in Berlin, so I got thrown into the party scene when I was 13 or 14…it was quite extreme. Lots of techno three days in a row and all that,” Andraschko explained over the phone.
Founding her eponymous label after graduating from Central Saint Martins’ BA womenswear program, the designer draws from her experiences as a notorious party girl to create a label that utterly rejects society’s expectations of women.
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Her work is the antithesis of the so-called “clean girl” aesthetic, a trend popularized on TikTok that demands women look simultaneously perfect and effortless, as if they woke up sporting flawless, glowy skin and ultra-slicked back hair, rather than spending endless time and money to achieve the look.
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“I feel like it’s toxic. It makes women feel like losers. You feel like, ‘Oh, I have to wake up, drink bone broth, go to classes at seven in the morning, be perfectly sober, do all these things to fit in this system.’ I don’t want to be like that. And I don’t want to feel bad about myself for not being capable of living like that,” the designer said.
Instead, Andraschko is drawn to the harsh reality of mess: think last night’s makeup smeared across the face, and flat-iron burnt hair sticking up every which way. Or, bloodied pointe shoes, which models wore to stomp down the runway in for the label’s fall 2023 runway show in London.
While growing up in Berlin’s party scene may have imbued Andraschko with the countercultural energy that runs through her brand, she often felt out of place among the all-black affair of slick leather pants and cutout compression clothing popular with ravers, leading her to dabble in a variety of subcultures, from indie to goth to emo to rock.
“Me personally, I don’t vibe with this whole really dark, techno-esque aesthetic,” she explained. She moved to London, and describes it as the place where she belongs.
“It felt fun and colorful here–people who had crazy makeup and frills and it wasn’t so serious anymore,” she added.
Collections are odes to eclectic eras that Andraschko experimented with in her teens: emo culture, the rock ‘n roll party girl, and skaters and ballerinas.
“I draw from my own teenage years. Although I was never a skater or ballerina, I tried to go to the next subculture. I think it’s cathartic to relive your early teens. It just feels melancholic, in a good way, to go back to that,” she said.
Despite the variance in inspirations, motifs run throughout the designer’s work in a way that marks it as classically Andrashko: uber-peaked shoulders shoot up from jackets, micro minidresses feature skirts that bubble outward or are no more than confectionary explosion of tulle, and T-shirts and tank tops feature tongue in cheek sayings such as “I Prefer Downers” or “I F–ked the Lead Singer.”
If past collections are homages to the designer’s youth, her upcoming spring 2024 collection is representative of who she is today.
“This collection feels like a very personal one. I’m going to launch it during London Fashion Week, and then we’ll have a showroom later in Paris during Paris Fashion Week. It will have around 20 looks,” said Andraschko, keeping her cards close to her chest.