Lace, scissors, camera – a portrait of couturier Irene Luft for Deutsche Welle

Plauen, Vogtland. In an embroidery workshop that feels lifted from another era, a machine draws three-dimensional patterns from a single thread – millimetre by millimetre. Beside it, hands cut lace that will later appear on the runways of Berlin. For this report, we packed our bags twice: first Plauen, then Munich. Two shoot days, one story.

From the Vogtland to the Nymphenburg Atelier

The first shoot day took the Basiliscus Film team to Stickerei Reuter & Sohn – one of the last workshops still producing Plauen lace the way the region has known it since 1890. Irene Luft has worked with them for years. Depending on the collection, she collaborates with up to four different Plauen companies to refine her designs with embroidery. What was once considered old-fashioned is, in her hands, firmly back in the world of haute couture: delicate guipure lace on gossamer tulle, Merino wool-blend embroideries on silk, transparency with conviction.

The second day brought us to Munich, Atelier Nymphenburg. Irene Luft drew lines on paper with a steady hand – pen, ink, fabric. A designer who thinks not in seasons but in sculptures. Pencil skirts, wide-cut coats, evening gowns that appeared on the Berlin Fashion Week runway with lace gas masks. Alicia Keys wears her designs. A dress she created for Franziska Knuppe for the Vienna Opera Ball was voted the most beautiful of the evening – and later auctioned for €2,010 in aid of a good cause. It now hangs in Germany's only lace museum.

What Went Into the Report

Our two-person camera team was there on both days, with the brief in mind and an eye for the right moment. The dramaturgy followed a clear idea: from the origins of the lace in the workshops of the Vogtland to the finished collection in the hands of a designer who has stayed true to her material while the fashion world around her moves ever faster. The finished report was delivered without commentary track to Deutsche Welle and broadcast as part of the euromaxx programme.