Paradisiacal design possibilities with
WARP KNITS

The theme for the students’ projects was PARADISE. The students from the course Innovative Product Design reflected about their personal interpretation of paradise and translated it into bold, expressive design concepts. KARL MAYER provided support with materials. The company supplied the students with hand-selected finished fabrics in white, from which they were invited to select and transform through techniques like digital printing, epoxy resin treatments, and embroidery.

Entire collections were developed and one prototype of each was produced during the project. Three of the unique prototypes are highlights at KARL MAYER’s booth at ITMA ASIA + CITME 2025 in Singapore.

designed by Kerstin Greul

BLÜTENMEER is a progressive menswear collection that demonstrates the poetry created when industrial textile expertise meets imaginative design. It asks how high-performance home textiles, produced with warp knitting precision, can be reinterpreted as garments that embody lightness, movement, and identity. The answer is BLÜTENMEER – a ninepiece zero-waste collection that unites floral poetry, technical precision, and sustainable thinking. Inspired by Claude Monet’s water lily garden in Giverny, the designs feature digital prints, appliqué techniques, and innovative pattern concepts. BLÜTENMEER is more than a fashion statement – it is a creative experiment with strong innovation potential. It fuses product development, material transformation, and design research – to spark new dialogue between industry, sustainability, and fashion. BLÜTENMEER is a textile homage to light, movement, and the freedom to be oneself.

designed by Ramona Möllers

FLOATING EDEN is part of a conceptional couture line, designed as a Women’s Collection for Spring/Summer 2026. Inspired by the natural movement of blossoms – opening in the light, closing in darkness – it serves as a metaphor for female self-expression and transformation. The nine-piece collection invites every woman to decide for herself when and how she wishes to bloom. Flowing silhouettes, modular elements, and tulip-inspired gradients from vibrant pink to soft white translate this idea into textile form, while the garments can be combined and expanded through transformable details. The exhibited model, the Bloom Corset, embodies this concept through transparency, lightness, and petal-like volume.

Adaptable features such as drawstrings, elastic bands, lacing, and smocking techniques allow the silhouette to shift from fitted to voluminous, offering flexibility and personal expression. Heat transfer printing on delicate warp knitted fabrics and the conceptual use of shape-memory wire support the dynamic blossoming of form, identity, and emotion.

In addition to the exhibits at the trade fair, the results of the other student projects also demonstrated exceptional creativity.

Fabian Merkert developed the original capsule collection GRÄFRATHER TIGER. It includes home and away sport shirts as well as training and presentation clothing and was inspired by the amateur team of the same name from Solingen-Gräfrath and the architecture of this city. A special feature is the use of a fine, warp knitted lace fabric. The lightweight, elastic, and breathable material breaks with conventional sportswear aesthetics and makes a creative and social statement against traditional, male-dominated role models in amateur sports.

Lisa Moritz, on the other hand, created a collection of ten expressive looks that take up the textile lightness of mesh and lace structures and translate them into imaginative silhouettes. The motto here is SOFT SUITING. The final prototype – a coated suit with an opulent collar – combines experimental techniques such as embroidery and cameo coating to create an innovative material presentation.

Maria Catena Del Popolo combined the words “shell” and “celestial” to create the name for her women's summer collection, SHELLESTIAL. The collection stands for a novel use of materials and captures the longing for lightness, freedom, and sensuality. It is characterized by revealing silhouettes, transparent fabrics, and elegant, romantic designs that lend the technical material Trevira CS a new, emotional expressiveness.

Under the theme PARADISE ON EARTH, Nina Becker developed a collection that explores nature's reconquest of industrial structures. The collection is based on various warp knitted fabrics. Through grafting, laminating, resin coating, and other experimental processes, ten designs were created that combine clothing with material research and creative expression.

With her collection PARADIVE - draped dimensions, Emily Bujna has succeeded in making a creative statement about transformation, sustainability, and the dissolution of rigid boundaries between industry and design. Inspiration came from the aesthetic depth of the underwater world, especially jellyfish and flowing movement.

The collection combines transparency, organic volumes, free cutting, textile prints that simulate the flow of water, and accessories such as pearls.