Berlin designer Sia Arnika is calling all Brats

A lot has changed for Berlin-based designer Sia Arnika since she last spoke to THE FACE in 2022. Julia Fox, who at the time was her biggest client, wore a glossy carmine-red top and skirt set from Sia’s AW22 collection – garments which spiked every fashion editor’s antenna right up. The collection was rife with equally avant-garde pieces, such as slashed jersey trousers, tassel bags and textured dresses.

The Danish-born, self – professed ​“country girl from the north” was living out a veritable fashion reverie. Little did she know that a few years later, her brand would expand tenfold.

Just one day after her 32^nd birthday, Charli xcx stepped out to celebrate at Tenets of The Trees in LA. Sure, it was cool that Rosalía brought a bouquet filled with cigarettes along, and that Billie Eilish and Lorde turned up. But it was Charli’s birthday clobber that had the internet gagged.

Very much adhering to the all-important Brat aesthetic, she turned up in a white cut-out top, a sliver of black bra peeking through, black short-shorts and black boots. Sia Arnika, of course, was responsible for the viral outfit. ​“I was sitting at home when a notification popped up to say that Charli [was wearing] one of my looks. It made for a really great Sunday!” FKA twigs came knocking at Sia’s door a few months before that, and was later spotted with one of her bags slung over her shoulder on the Met Gala dance floor.

Now, Sia has since been welcomed into the Berlin Fashion Week fold, quickly becoming a mainstay on that circuit. In between supplying head-turning fashion for some of our favourite celebrities, she’s also been hard at work on her next collection – which is largely made from recycled polyester and sustainably sourced materials. She’s also been turning out sexy tattered skirts that might get you arrested for public indecency, polo-neck tops that double up as leggings or shorts, plus inflatable bags made from recycled PVC (kinky). Sia even had a fridge filled with fruit flies and web cams to capture up-close footage of the collection and this was projected onto a screen at the runway show. They’re all a part of a vision Sia calls ​“experimental normality”.

After a week spent recovering from the last few months in Spain, today, Sia is in her studio, energised, and dressed in a slick all black outfit. ​“Berlin is quite nice in August because everybody leaves and it becomes a little bit like a desolate island,” she says.

Sat in her studio with a rail of the most recent line beside her, she says the origin of her SS25 collections came about via memories of her playing football as a kid. ​“I like to start with something quite normal, take it apart, and put it back together in a different way. Classic polo shirts were a part of my initial ideas because they have this uniform look.” A bit of draping here, some sewing there, and the line began to take shape. The conveyor belt of subcultures that have passed through Berlin over the last 12 years further helped shape the collection.

“The city does a good job of bringing outsiders together to form a community,” Sia says. ​“I learned through living here and the people in my circle what culture, art, and music mean in Germany and how to look at it critically. There’s a very heavy club scene in Berlin, and somehow these small influences get under your skin.”

It’s a world away from the small island Sia was raised on. Growing up in Nykøbing Mors, Denmark, her everyday life consisted of ​“playing football and wishing that my life was different than what it was”. Her only glimpses of pop stars were through MTV. Now, she dresses them. A 360 moment, to say the least.

So how did the Charli link-up come about? Sia hit up Chris Horan, Charli’s stylist. ​“I unashamedly reached out and told him that I feel that something should happen,” she says. After she asked him if they could figure something out (on the remix?), one missed shipment, three looks and a chart-topping superstar’s birthday weekend later, Charli made her Sia Arnika debut. ​“Charli’s having the summer of her life, and she’s the moment,” Sia says. ​“She’s not trying to fit into a mould or please people; she’s exactly who she is and I felt the same way about SS25.”

Everyone Sia has ever wanted to dress has already been in touch, but she’s keeping names schtum. ​“I don’t want to jinx it!”, she says, cackling. ​“It’s difficult as a Danish person to feel pride because that’s not something that becomes very natural to us, but I’m very, let’s say, content, about some upcoming developments.”

Although she works alone (alongside a revolving door of freelancers), Sia is optimistic that she’ll be able to expand her business even further soon. ​“It’s too much. I would rather try to focus more on the design and business side and let other people take over full-time.” Well, if her recent work with Charli and twigs proves anything, it’s that plenty can happen in a very short amount of time. ​“Let’s make it a pattern. When we talk again in two years, I’ll have a bigger team.” See you in 2026.