Gewandhaus, custom-made garments and accessories since 1998

The soul of gewandhaus is Dominik Bachmann, born 1969 in Switzerland.

At the age of 14 I began sewing my own clothes. On one hand I wanted to have a bigger choice to dress myself in daily life and on the other hand I did not have enough pocket money to buy more clothes and on top of it, I could create my own ideas and fantasies. I had nobody who could teach me how to sew properly, so I had to learn everything by myself discovering a new trick with every solution that had to be found to achieve a certain detail in tailoring.

Short afterwards I created my first dress for my best friend. On a Saturday evening she passed by that I could took her measurements and when we were done she went out with friends, had party while I stayed at home and sew her dress. It was a jersey gown with a stuffed tube collar. The next day I was totally proud with my result and we took pictures of the creation the whole afternoon. Some months later I saw a picture of the same type of collar in a fashion magazine. Was it a coincidence or was it a sense of trends?

The first fashion show was in a living room of a friend. Then followed a fashion show on a theatre stage of an ancient restaurant in the village I was born.

Over the years when I did my master’s degree of law at Berne University I continued sewing clothes for myself and I created the costumes for several theatre projects.

Spring 1997 for the first time I worked together with Gabriel Häussler and Tracy Quoidbach, designing costumes for a theatre production. During this time we recognized that our stylistic directions and working methods are similar, and determined to continue our teamwork. The result was our first fashion show in the fall of 1997, where we presented our work to a larger public for the first time. In order to fulfill both public presence and space needs, we opened our atelier on the Schlossstrasse in Bern in March 1998, under the name of „gewandhaus Bern – Atelier für angewandte Kunst“.
The successful participation in several competitions (Prix Bolero, tmc Avantgarde and the Commission for Applied Arts Berne) costume design and production for the musical „Fiddler on the Roof“ and the revolving exhibitions in our showroom established „gewandhaus Bern“ as newcomers in the Swiss fashion scene in a rather short span of time. With our second fashion show, „City of Lights“, in the centre of Berne we concluded a successful 1998. Tracy Quoidbach left for Portland, Oregon and Gewandhaus continued to be my own label.

From 1999 to present I concentrated on custom-made tailoring, creating home textiles and interior consulting. As president of the QC-quartier culturel I organised various cultural events and parties in our cave in Berne.

During my Advanced studies in Applied Ethics at Zürich university from 2005 to 2007 the gewandhaus was on low key.

Since October 2006 I live in Zürich. The „gewandhaus“ has moved here too.

I'm here for you and your textile fantasies.

Zürich, February 2008