The Story
In late August 2025, Basel added a new event to its cultural calendar. From 28 to 30 August, the first Basel Fashion Week brought national and international designers together for three days of shows, presentations and encounters in the city. Its two principal evening shows took place on 29 and 30 August, with the Elisabethenkirche providing an unusually theatrical setting for the runway.
The choice of venue immediately distinguished the event. Instead of a neutral exhibition hall, fashion was presented beneath the high vaults, stone arches and neo-Gothic details of one of Basel’s most recognisable interiors. Lighting transformed the architecture throughout the evening, moving between deep blues, warm amber tones and concentrated runway illumination.
The Opening Show on Friday, 29 August presented five names: Parla Wedding, Raphael Blechschmidt, Arutti, Neda Porphyrozei and Lovely Apple. The official programme placed the fashion show at 19:30, following the Red Carpet and before the evening’s after-show gathering.
Among the Basel connections, Raphael Blechschmidt brought particular depth to the programme. The designer has worked in the city for decades, with his boutique at Bäumleingasse 22 and an atelier where garments are cut, draped and constructed by hand. His house states that its clothing is made exclusively in Switzerland.
For Basel Fashion Week, Blechschmidt created a dedicated collection rather than presenting a retrospective of previous work. After being approached by co-organiser Jelena Zoric, he developed Inspired by Africa, a 20-look collection completed in roughly four weeks. Its starting point was a group of handmade batik fabrics he encountered in Tanzania, interpreted through the vocabulary of his own Basel atelier rather than as a reproduction of African dress. The collection also included three menswear looks, a first for the designer.
Lovely Apple provided another direct connection with the city. The label was founded in Switzerland in 2020 by Jelena Zoric, who later opened its first Basel store. Swiss commercial records describe Lovely Apple GmbH as a Basel-based company active in fashion retail, clothing and accessories, design and the organisation of fashion events. Zoric is also listed as the company’s managing director.
That overlap between fashion label, local creative scene and event organisation is significant. Basel Fashion Week is currently represented by Jelena Zoric as CEO and association president, with Bouya Ndombasi as vice-president.
The inaugural event therefore had a character quite different from the scale of the established fashion capitals. It combined international ambition with a distinctly local network: designers, models, organisers and guests shared the same historic space, and the boundaries between runway, audience and the conversations surrounding the show remained unusually close.
The project is continuing. Basel Fashion Week has announced its next edition for 9–13 September 2026, expanding the format to five days.
For a new fashion platform, that continuation may ultimately matter more than spectacle. Its first edition established the setting and the community around it. The next will show how Basel develops an identity of its own within the European fashion calendar.
My Editorial Experience
At the time of the first Basel Fashion Week, I was living in Basel, so this was not an event I had travelled across Europe to discover. It was happening in the city around me.
I attended the Opening Show on 29 August and had a VIP seat in the front row, directly beside the catwalk. For a photographer, that proximity changes everything. Instead of seeing the collection only as a sequence of complete looks, I could concentrate on expressions, fabrics, construction, movement and the way individual garments reacted to the changing light.
The Elisabethenkirche contributed as much to the atmosphere as the runway itself. The scale of its architecture remained visible beyond the models: stone arches, carved details and high vaulted spaces illuminated in blue and amber. Against that historic interior, some of the strongest looks became almost architectural themselves.
From the first row, the evening also felt surprisingly intimate. The models passed only a short distance from my camera, while designers, organisers and guests remained accessible before and after the show. I attended with an aspiring model, and throughout the evening we found ourselves speaking with people from different sides of the event rather than experiencing it only from our seats.
I had the opportunity to meet designers and people involved with Basel Fashion Week, including Bouya Ndombasi, now its vice-president. I also met people connected with the labels shown that evening, including Lovely Apple, and photographed Raphael Blechschmidt’s presentation as part of the Opening Show.
Those encounters are an important part of what I remember. Fashion weeks are often represented by the few minutes during which the models are on the runway. From inside the event, however, much of their character lies between those moments: people recognising one another, introductions, conversations beside the catwalk and the gradual change from a formal presentation into a more social evening.
After the show, the atmosphere continued over drinks and conversation. It gave us time to speak with designers and other guests without the pace of the runway, and to discover more of the people behind what we had just photographed.
The lighting, music and setting made the evening visually impressive, but what stayed with me most was its accessibility. This was the first edition of Basel Fashion Week, and it still felt possible to encounter the people creating it rather than simply watch the finished production from a distance.
I left knowing that I would gladly return for the following edition — this time to continue the story as Palomino Magazine.
Palomino Gallery
