After winning Lichting 2024, Swiss-Dutch designer Peter Wertmann returned to Amsterdam Fashion Week with Last Refuge, staged under the dome of Circa. The presentation opened with a lone figure roaming the deck, a nomad suspended between survival and surrender. “I’m so alive” echoed through the space, rising in intensity as the model’s movements quickened in sync with the sound, urgency setting the tone for what followed: a sculptural meditation on systems in collapse, and the instinct to find stillness within noise.
The collection unfolded in oversized silhouettes and survivalist layers. A mesh tank stretched past the hips, paired with trousers patterned like rock formations and tucked into army-green boots. A jacket constructed from different panels leaving open space at the shoulders and elbows suggested garments engineered for endurance. The rocks from Wertmann’s award-winning Lichting debut returned, this time reimagined and sized down in metal cages worn as bags.
Figures emerged in fishnet-layered trousers, army-green life vests, and shoes wrapped in raincoat fabric, blurring function into form. A masked model in a gleaming silver raincoat with hood pulled tight appeared ready to weather the storm. Elsewhere, rope wound tightly around arms restricted movement, overlaying delicate smocked tops in pale grey; fragility and force in tension. Prints of cracked tree bark and droplets of water evoked landscapes marked by endurance.
Apocalypse-core was pushed into new territory here, balancing technical precision with emotional weight. Wertmann’s garments carried the contradictions of protection and exposure, freedom and constraint. Last Refuge felt raw yet deliberate, sculptural, and heavy in tone. By collapsing vast landscapes into wearable form, Wertmann invited his audience to pause and inhabit stillness amidst chaos. A continuation of the story he began last year, and a powerful statement of where it is heading next.