10 years of GmbH: ‘Speaking out has had repercussions’

This story is taken from the summer 2026 issue of Dazed, which is on sale here.

Benjamin A Huseby and Serhat Işik are in a reflective mood. It’s now been a decade since they founded their label, GmbH, in the halcyon days of 2016, after meeting on Berlin’s legendary dancefloors. Former fashion photographer Huseby and menswear grad Işik originally conceived the brand as a collective, renouncing their names in favour of the initials used to describe a limited company in Germany. By essentially naming their brand “brand”, they stepped back and let the clothes do the talking.

From the outset, their clothes were suffused with the raw energy and throbbing beat of Berlin’s underground club scene. Think body-hugging technical sportswear, PVC trousers with double zip flies, and brawny silhouettes borrowed from industrial workwear. The pair’s recent AW26 runway – a blockbuster light show in a disused Berlin power plant – continued their musical love affair, with a foray into the city’s 1980s post-punk scene.

But while their collections remain deeply rooted in the city’s club culture, GmbH has always been about more than that, despite the industry’s efforts to constrain Brown designers to streetwear-shaped boxes. Huseby’s Pakistani-Norwegian roots and Işik’s Turkish-German heritage are the bedrock of the brand, with collections like SS18’s Europe Endless, inspired by their migrant fathers who were othered as gastarbeiters (“guest workers”); or SS23’s lyrical offering rooted in south Asian beauty; or their decision to cast second-generation immigrants in their collection campaigns. And when most of the fashion industry was turning a blind eye to the genocide in Gaza, Huseby and Işik delivered a blistering, ten-minute speech at their AW24 Paris show, risking reputational – and financial – ruin to stand up for what was right.

Though they may be one of the only brands willing to do this, Huseby and Işik do not stand alone. At the heart of GmbH is their close-knit band of friends, collaborators and muses, whose values go hand-in-hand with their own. Here, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the brand, their community comes together to quiz the pair on their early life goals, unbreakable bond and whether, knowing what they know now, they would do it all again.

SVEN MARQUARDT, PHOTOGRAPHER AND BERGHAIN BOUNCER

What made you want to start your own label?

Benjamin A Huseby: It’s funny, I remember being in Berghain this one summer when I had a bit of a midlife crisis. I had just come out of a long relationship and needed a change. But I [always] drew fashion and made my own clothes when I was a teenager, so my interest in making clothes was always there.

Serhat Işik: I just never wanted to go to Paris or London, or any of the major fashion capitals. It was never my dream to work for those brands. I’ve seen friends do it and how it’s changed them.

FATIMA AL QADIRI, MUSICIAN

Is there a diasporic or homeland figure who is an eternal muse for you?

Serhat Işik: I love Zeki Müren, who was an incredible singer, actor and icon in Turkey. He was this very flamboyant, almost Liberace-like figure. Growing up in a religious context as a Muslim teenager, seeing someone queer being successful was kind of amazing.

Benjamin A Huseby: For me I would say Abida Parveen, a Pakistani Sufi singer. And if I can choose a Norwegian muse it would be Gunvor Hofmo, a queer modernist poet who has been a big inspiration on what we do at GmbH.

ALI CHERRI, ARTIST

I’m drawn to archives and pre-owned garments. Do you think that clothes remember the bodies that wore them, and does that memory shape those who wear them next?

Serhat Işik: Yes, I think so. When I thrift for clothes I can tell how a person has worn the garment – it could be in the elbows or knees. There’s traces of a person that has lived in a garment, for sure.

Benjamin A Huseby: Natural fabrics contain the ghosts of their previous owners more than synthetic materials. I don’t know if that makes sense, but that’s just the thought!

“It’s an ethical minefield even working in fashion. We know that it’s a really shitty industry on many levels, but there’s still so much beauty” – Benjamin A Huseby

MIGUEL ADROVER, DESIGNER

Do you support Palestinian action?

Benjamin A Huseby: Yes, without doubt.

TAI SHANI, ARTIST

Is there something your activism asks of you personally that cannot be expressed through your label?

Benjamin A Huseby: It’s an ethical minefield even working in fashion. We know that it’s a really shitty industry on many levels, but there’s still so much beauty. There’s a question: can you create beauty, and with what means do you create beauty, and at what cost?

Serhat Işik: As a brand – or whatever you want to call it – you can create space for these conversations, but individually, the activism happens with others behind the scenes. Blocking roads and getting arrested, all those kinds of things, you don’t post those as part of your brand.

HONEY DIJON, DJ

When you started the brand it was very much influenced by club culture in Berlin. As you approach your tenth anniversary, you’ve infused your designs with more of your heritage. Does Berlin club culture still play an important role in your design process?

Serhat Işik: Music will always be a big part of GmbH. We have so many friends around us who are DJs, musicians and part of club culture who still wear the clothes. It’s very much a part of our world. But we are not on the dancefloors as much as we used to be!

Benjamin A Huseby: There were definitely periods where we really wanted to get away from this Berlin club culture’ ‘serious’ designers. It was a little bit of a chip on our shoulder, both being Brown and labelled as ‘streetwear’ or ‘clubwear‘, so we started playing with references that were very different, like mid-century couture, or elements of our own cultures, and tried to bridge all those things.

JORDAN FIRSTMAN, ACTOR AND DIRECTOR

What is a piece of advice you would give to yourself if you were your own best friend?

Benjamin A Huseby: Get a life!

Serhat Işik: Stop overthinking and get over it.

MOHAMMED EL-KURD, WRITER AND POET

Political messaging in fashion runs the risk of coming across as contrived or even tacky, yet year after year you’ve been able to pull it off with so much dignity and sincerity. Why do you think your approach lands so well?

Benjamin A Huseby: I think because it’s genuine and something we’ve been deeply involved in all our lives. We tread very carefully and don’t make activism into a commercial end. Our fashion and our business are like vehicles to create the changes we want, rather than make a T-shirt to get attention and sell. Other brands slap a metaphorical slogan on something to sell more. That’s very transparent, and not something we’re interested in.

MJ HARPER, DANCER

If you could go back in time and give each other a gift as a baby, what would that be?

Benjamin A Huseby: I would give you the most amazing craft room, where you could make everything you wanted to. And no one else would be allowed to enter.

Serhat Işik: A custom-made dance outfit for your ballroom classes. I know you would have pulled it out and been inspired by it.

CRYSTALLMESS, DJ AND ARTIST

I love the fact that you’re two besties working together. What’s a dynamic in your relationship that people sometimes misread?

Serhat Işik: That we’re a couple, which we’re not!

“Don’t bend your identity to please people around you.” – Serhat Işik

KIM RUSSELL, CRITIC AND COMMENTATOR

How does having a moral backbone affect the way you design?

Benjamin A Huseby: Maybe we overthink things! Morals are how you live your life and how you do everything, so they affect the way that you work and design as well. You can’t really separate it.

ELLIE GRACE CUMMING, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, ANOTHER MAN

Are there early life motivations that remain relevant for you today?

Benjamin A Huseby: I’ve been very idealistic since I was young. I got into political activism from around the age of 12 and that still very much influences me now. [It’s] this idea of wanting to create a better world. I’m truly an idealist in that way.

Serhat Işik: You know those rolling stamps you have as a child? Yesterday I found one, and realised that you can roll it along your patterns and make seam allowances. It just blew my mind. This endless desire to learn about making things has always been the motivation I’ve had.

EMMAN DEBATTISTA, CREATIVE CONSULTANT

If time were no constraint, which craft or technique would you immerse yourself in and why?

Serhat Işik: Pattern cutting. That’s what I’m best at, and that’s why we were successful in the beginning.

Benjamin A Huseby: If I was to stay within fashion, it would be creating my own fabrics. If it was anything, I would say gardening.

TIM BLANKS, JOURNALIST AND CRITIC

Your AW26 Berlin show was so monumental. Does that reflect a change in attitude to what you do?

Benjamin A Huseby: No, I think we always want to be monumental, we just don’t always have the means! [both laugh]

DONNA HUANCA, ARTIST

As an artist, I believe making art serves two equal purposes: healing our past and documenting our present. What advice would you give to your younger selves to survive in times like those we are living through now?

Benjamin A Huseby: Trust your instinct, and don’t be scared of making things.

Serhat Işik: Don’t bend your identity to please people around you.

AFFA OSMAN, CASTING DIRECTOR

I’ve had the privilege to call you family and spend a lot of time around you, and your bond is really beautiful to witness. What is something you understand about each other that never needs to be said?

Benjamin A Huseby: When the other person is upset or needs a hug.

Serhat Işik: I think I’m pretty good at understanding when Benjamin needs space or proximity.

ROBIN MEASON, GLOBAL PR DIRECTOR, BALENCIAGA

In the ten years since you started GmbH, how has the fashion industry changed? Has it been for better or worse?

Benjamin A Huseby: There was definitely a period where inclusivity and diversity truly changed and had a great impact on how fashion appears. But, on the flip side, when we started out there was a lot of interest in independent brands, and now attention has really gone to the big conglomerates and brands. It’s all about being bigger.

“Before we have moodboards, ideas, anything – there’s music. Our brains immediately go to music” – Serhat Işik

AHMAD SWAID, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, DAZED MENA

You have both been fierce advocates in a fickle industry long before it became mainstream. From your AW24 Paris show, where you paused the industry for a ten-minute manifesto on the occupation of Palestine, to your unwavering focus on LGBTQ+ topics as they intersect with migrant communities, you’ve managed to stay successful while openly critiquing the industry. Trailblazing would be an insufficient way to describe you both. So, what I would really like to know is: how do you both have fun? What makes you laugh? Which Real Housewives city are we watching?

Serhat Işik: Well, most recently I’ve picked up archery. And today we came back from Brandenburg on the outskirts of Berlin where we celebrated a friend’s birthday with lots of food, saunas, games and life drawing. And [I’m watching] Atlanta, Beverly Hills and Salt Lake City.

Benjamin A Huseby: I am very serious, so I don’t watch Real Housewives [laughs]. But I go to K-pop dance classes for fun.

EDWARD BUCHANAN, DESIGNER

Your brand [ethos] is infused with consciousness, conservation and honesty. How do you continue to keep it so honest?

Benjamin A Huseby: I think the honesty just comes from being who we are. Sometimes people think it’s some sort of talent or ability, but it’s more like being compelled. I just can’t keep my mouth shut.

KIM JONES, DESIGNER

How does music inspire your process, especially working in Berlin?

Serhat Işik: Before we have moodboards, ideas, anything – there’s music. Our brains immediately go to music, then his goes to poetry, and mine to silhouettes and patterns. But it always starts with music.

ELYANNA, MUSICIAN

What music inspired you when creating and designing your last collection?

Serhat Işik: We listened to Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft [DAF], and Einstürzende Neubauten too.

Benjamin A Huseby: A lot of German 80s synth, post-punk and industrial music. We wanted to explore the scene that was happening in Berlin before our time.

ALISTER MACKIE, STYLIST

You have created a spirit of togetherness in fashion. Why is this important to you?

Serhat Işik: I think we all seek safety. That’s kind of a fundamental childhood need [for me], or any queer person for that matter – to feel like you belong.

Benjamin A Huseby: I always felt a sense of alienation wherever I was. Moving to London and to Berlin, I was slowly able to build communities where I felt a [sense of] belonging, and that’s something I want to continue.

KATY ENGLAND, STYLIST

In these challenging times when running your own business, fashion or otherwise, can be demanding, what is the thing that motivates you and keeps you pushing forward?

Serhat Işik: Fashion is the tool we’re best equipped with to tell the stories we want to [tell]. I think that this is what keeps us going, because it’s what we do best.

Benjamin A Huseby: That moment – almost something sublime – when the clothes and the music all come to life in the show. That sensation is something really worth suffering for.

“I don’t think it has ever been personally beneficial for anyone to talk about Palestine, especially in Germany. But it has brought us closer to the people in Berlin we want to be surrounded by” – Serhat Işik

ALANA HADID, CREATIVE DIRECTOR, MODEL AND ACTIVIST

As a Berlin-based brand, how important is your advocacy for Palestine? Considering the restrictive laws imposed on Germans and the global silencing of pro-Palestinian voices, how important is it for creatives to use their voices to speak out?

Benjamin A Huseby: It’s essential. We’ve been explicitly outspoken, and I don’t think Berlin has punished us for that. In fact, our sense of community has grown even stronger, and the connections have been harnessed on a personal level. Professionally, it’s different. It has had repercussions, but I think that’s kind of obvious.

Serhat Işik: I don’t think it has ever been personally beneficial for anyone to talk about Palestine, especially in Germany. But it has brought us closer to the people in Berlin we want to be surrounded by. You’re calling out to the community you want to be spending your life with, and that’s worth it.

EMMA ELIZABETH DAVIDSON, FASHION FEATURES DIRECTOR, DAZED

Who would play you in the film of your life, and who would direct the film?

Benjamin A Huseby: Zayn Malik! Another biracial Pakistani. It would be directed by Joachim Trier, so it would have that Norwegian dryness to it.

Serhat Işik: I love Wong Kar-wai, and it would be funny if Jordan [Firstman] played me.

DEBRA SHAW, MODEL

When you see all of the positive reactions to your actions, how does it make you feel?

Benjamin A Huseby: Worth it.

Serhat Işik: Yep. It makes it feel worth it.

JUMANA MANNA, ARTIST

Foraging or gleaning are commonly understood as responses to and forms of resistance against waste. As a fellow plant lover, I’d be curious to hear how those concepts influence your approach to design.

Benjamin A Huseby: I think we’re very frugal in the way we design.

Serhat Işik: We have indulged in a lot of old Norwegian jumpers that we’ve reused and merged into new garments. Many of our collections had projects like that, which later evolved into this line we have called demi-couture, where we work from materials that we’ve found.

HUSHIDAR MORTEZAIE, DESIGNER

Your environmentalism, multicultural hybridity and questioning of identity are beautiful. It never feels performative as your collections are so striking. How do you approach designing with this consciousness while also keeping it very real and sensual?

Serhat Işik: I think it’s because our personalities are either serious or goofy, ping-ponging between those two moods in the studio. We’re very serious about our craft, but at the same time we goof around a lot.

“You have to be a bit delusional to do this” – Benjamin A Huseby

TED STANSFIELD, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, DAZED

What do you do when you can’t sleep at night?

Benjamin A Huseby: I wake up far too early usually and then I have to listen to either a meditation or history podcasts.

Serhat Işik: I rarely have trouble sleeping. I have trouble waking up!

STEFANO PILATI, DESIGNER

Would you do it all again?

Benjamin A Huseby: You have to be a bit delusional to do this. So, yeah, maybe. Maybe not, but maybe.

Serhat Işik: I think I can speak for both of us when I say this is probably the hardest thing we’ve done in our lives. It requires a little bit of naivety. The immediate physical reaction to that question is ‘no’, because it’s been so hard. But then, if you think about everything that’s happened in those ten years, you know, it was worth it.