Welcome to Melitta Baumeister’s Weird & Wonderful Fashion Universe

At Melitta Baumeister’s spring 2025 runway show—her New York Fashion Week debut after winning the 2023 CFDA prize—interpretive dancers hit the runway doing all kinds of moves with gym equipment and towels in hand. A breathy soundtrack played overhead in the industrial venue near the U.N.; the word “focus” was repeated over and over. Suddenly, Paralympic sprinter Scout Bassett ran down the runway wearing a bodysuit with pointy shoulder pads and printed with the number zero.

Baumeister was certainly thinking about sports for this collection, but not in an on-the-nose manner. Rather, the German-born, New York-raised designer was dreaming about the movement of shapes. “I wanted to create that aerodynamic feel,” she said backstage after the show. The opening looks were true to the aesthetic that fans of the brand know and love: divinely oversize, boxy, casual, sporty, and a little bit ironic. But most of all—unique and immediately identifiable.

Jerseys were blown up and chunky, done in faux leather. There were plenty of dresses with sculptural, topsy-turvy curves and just-right projections jutting out left and right. “I feel like nowadays, more than ever, people do think about health and wellness and feeling good in your body and building your body as well,” Baumeister said. “There’s a lot that athleticism has in common with shaping forms. You’re shaping your body the same way as we are shaping form.”

It may have been Baumeister’s first NYFW runway (and the final show of spring 2025 in the Big Apple), but the label has been around for 10 years, and is well-loved by industry insiders for its distinctly weird and enchanting aesthetic. On the runway, some of the models wore red contacts while others had smoke coming out of their jackets and bags. The effect was slightly witchy, especially with tightly braided ponytails sticking straight out of the back of the models’ heads. “I wanted to do the moment after sports, after you accomplish something, after you come home and become human again,” said Baumeister. Offset continued his runway takeover after walking in Luar the previous night, and closed the show.

With 36 looks in total, the collection spanned Baumeister’s fantastically weird and wonderful universe. The three final looks posed a trio of extremes: a silver puffball of a dress with a big zero in the center, a sculptural tube-like dress that obscured part of the face, and a big magical jacket emitting smoke. On the other side of the spectrum, there were elements as casual as denim sets covered in streaks of color and t-shirts with smiley-face cutouts. As far as first shows go, Baumeister’s sporty runway debut had the fashion crowd on its feet.