Ottolinger and Desigual partner on upcycled capsule collection from brand archives

Madrid – Desigual continues to advance its unique and increasingly elevated collaboration policy, announcing its latest partnership with Berlin-based Ottolinger. A regular on the official Paris Fashion Week calendar, Ottolinger has developed a capsule collection with the Spanish company, founded in Barcelona in 1984. This new collection draws from Desigual's historical archive, following the guidelines of its strategic and previous collaborative alliances.

Desigual has highlighted that this collaboration with Ottolinger is particularly special. Its founding creative duo, Christa Bösch and Cosima Gadient, launched the brand from Berlin in 2015. Their creative and methodological vision is as unique as their focus on creating collections through elaborate processes of deconstruction, both aspirational and formal, of traditional tailoring and fashion. The Spanish company adds that in their early days, Bösch and Gadient acquired vintage Desigual garments from second-hand platforms. They would then dismantle, reinterpret, and reconfigure them to create new pieces marked by their own creative imagination. This collaboration draws heavily on that heritage. It is presented as an “organic” alliance between the Ottolinger founders' taste for upcycling and the universe, codes, heritage, and archive of Desigual. These creative impulses will materialise in a collaborative capsule collection developed from the Barcelona-based brand's archive.

“With Ottolinger, Desigual continues to develop a strategy that turns its creative heritage into a platform for innovation and international collaboration,” focusing at all times on establishing “alliances with brands that are defining contemporary fashion,” the Spanish company stated in a press release. They added that now, with the Berlin-based brand, Desigual “continues to project its creativity internationally, reinforcing its cultural relevance and consolidating an increasingly global position,” through a collaborative capsule that “reflects a shared vision between both brands.” This perspective is rooted in the principle of “understanding ‘the archive’ as a living resource capable of generating new aesthetic codes, extending the life cycle of materials, and opening up new possibilities for contemporary design.”

Launch on September 3

While no images of the capsule's garments have been released yet, Desigual has announced that the collection will be available from September 3. On this date, pieces from the collaborative capsule will be available for purchase. The collection will consist of garments from the Desigual archive, reinterpreted by the creative vision of Ottolinger's founding designers. This reformulation process has resulted in “exclusive pieces handcrafted in Barcelona.”

To undertake this process, the Spanish company notes that Bösch and Gadient have been working closely with Desigual's design workshop in Barcelona. They selected archive and inventory garments, assessing them for their prints, colours, and material quality. These pieces were then dismantled and reconstructed by hand to create the deconstructed silhouettes that will characterise the garments in this collaborative capsule collection. The resulting designs will reflect the creative impulses of both Desigual and the renowned Berlin-based design duo.

“The new pieces,” states the Spanish fashion multinational, “reflect the unmistakable creative language of Ottolinger.” However, they note that the “materials, prints, and colours maintain the essence of Desigual.” The result is a “collection that creates a dialogue between the brand's legacy and a new perspective on contemporary fashion.” With it, Desigual “continues to bring its creative universe to new audiences, keeping its innovative spirit alive and its ability to reinterpret design from diverse perspectives” through “these types of collaborations.”

Strategy to advance three objectives

The collaboration between Desigual and Ottolinger should be seen within the context of the brand's drive for revaluation and elevation. This initiative has been central to Desigual since its historic fashion show in Barcelona on June 6, 2024. That presentation for the spring/summer 2025 collection marked a turning point in the Barcelona-based company's history. It was both the culmination of its relaunch plan and the starting point of a careful strategy to elevate the brand and its fashion offerings. The company began to mark new milestones towards this goal, first with the launch announcement of “Studio”, its new premium fashion line. This was followed by its first collaborative partnerships with emerging international brands.

In July 2025, Desigual announced its partnership with the Dutch brand Botter to design a capsule collection. This collaboration can be considered the first in a series of international alliances with emerging, yet already recognised, designers. It was followed by an announcement with the Parisian brand Egonlab in November of the same year; another with the London-based Ukrainian designer Masha Popova in January 2026; and now, finally, the partnership with Berlin-based Ottolinger.

Although part of Desigual's premiumisation strategy, this collaboration policy is a distinct strategy within Thomas Meyer's Barcelona-based fashion group. The Spanish fashion multinational acknowledges that it is pursuing three objectives with each new collaboration with these new brands and young international designers. These goals are: first, to strengthen Desigual's international positioning; second, to connect with new generations of consumers by having the most prominent new voices in fashion reinterpret its archives; and third, to reinforce Desigual's positioning and increase its visibility in key markets for the company, such as the Netherlands, France, and Germany.

Supporting these interpretations, the Spanish company stated, “with this alliance, the company continues its commitment to collaborating with brands that bring new creative perspectives in regions important to Desigual, such as Germany in this case, one of Desigual's main markets, both online and in brick and mortar stores.” They also highlighted that “with this strategy, the brand continues to connect with some of the most relevant new generations of designers in the sector and reinforce its international positioning” at a “key moment for its future,” as the company remains focused on “renewing its image, its collections, its spaces... with the aim of attracting a new generation of consumers.”