During Berlin Fashion Week, the Ukrainian brand PLNGNS unveiled its new AW26 collection, “ERROR AS ASSET,” once again redefining the boundaries of contemporary fashion.

ERROR AS ASSET is a 30-look collection that positions waste, error, and imperfection as active assets within contemporary fashion systems. Divided into two lines, the collection articulates both concept and scalability. The ICONIC line forms the ideological core of PLNGNS, with garments constructed entirely from discarded sneakers, objects situated between art and utility, transformed through intensive handcraft into fully wearable, one-of-one pieces. The SIGNATURE line extends this language into a more accessible framework, combining stock fabrics and defective production leftovers with reduced sneaker components, enabling limited capsule releases without compromising the brand’s circular logic.

The collection rejects traditional gender divisions, instead working with two fit systems, feminine and masculine, resulting in an equal balance of 15 looks each. Styling by Gianni.vas sharpens silhouettes to heighten tension and provocation, while open casting brings together professional models and non-models across genders and appearances. Makeup functions as social testimony: visual references to frostbite and snow reflect the lived reality of Ukraine, where targeted attacks on civilian energy infrastructure have left populations without electricity and heating, embedding an ongoing humanitarian crisis directly into the visual language of the show.

Produced through an intensive, predominantly manual process, a single ICONIC garment requires up to 80 hours of work, with each collection repurposing between 500 and 800 pairs of sneakers. While the experimental studio operates in Europe, a significant portion of production remains in Ukraine, where development this season was extended due to war-related disruptions, power outages, and security conditions. Presented in a hybrid runway–presentation format within a historic Berlin villa, the collection stages a deliberate contrast between speed and stillness, tradition and disruption — reinforcing ERROR AS ASSET as both a fashion statement and a systemic critique.