Das Neue Schwarz

There is a moment that happens in this shop, and it happens to almost everyone. You walk in expecting second hand, and you leave understanding that the word does not really apply. Das Neue Schwarz does not sell clothes that someone got tired of. It sells pieces that people kept, because they knew what they had.

Tanya and David opened on Mulackstrasse in 2008, back when Mitte still had empty windows. The shop is small. The rails are dense. Nothing is arranged to look pretty, everything is arranged to be found.

Rick Owens, Yohji, Margiela: what is actually on the rails

The house language is avant-garde, and it leans Japanese and Belgian. Rick Owens, Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake, Comme des Garçons, Maison Margiela, Helmut Lang, Jil Sander. Over the past weeks alone they have shown a Rick Owens Lilies black dress with a wrap effect, a Yohji Yamamoto + Noir draped dress, Pleats Please by Issey Miyake, and a pair of Maison Margiela cutout ankle boots from the 2018 Galliano runway, in a 38.

The good pieces do not wait. A Rick Owens draped dress was posted and sold the same day. Around the clothes you will also find shoes, bags, jewellery, and, when the season turns, a serious coat section: duffle, raincoat, tailored overcoat. Menswear and womenswear share the same floor, which in Berlin is rarer than it should be.

Prices and what to expect

Most garments sit between 100€ and 300€, which for this level of label and this condition is honest. Everything is checked, everything is clean. The rarest things, runway or collector, go higher, and they often go straight to the online store rather than to the rail.

Which is the other thing to know: there is an online shop now, and the Instagram works as the real time stock feed. If you follow one Berlin vintage account to see what has just landed, make it this one.

Go if

You already know which Margiela era you like. You want something that will still make sense in ten years. You are ready to come back more than once, because what is here today will not be here next week.

Skip it if you are looking for a cheap basic. That is not the project.