Beate Karlsson doesn’t just defy conventions—she stomps on them with monstrous, gargantuan boots with four freaky-deaky toes. The Avavav creative director has built her brand on an eerie yet playful aesthetic that balances grotesque theatricality with high-fashion irreverence. From her infamous claw-footed sandals to towering mutant thigh-highs, Karlsson continues to revel in the absurd, creating pieces that are both evocative and a little terrifying.
For Fall 2025, Karlsson is digging—like, literally—into something even darker: Death anxiety. Her upcoming collection, The Hole, is an unfiltered dive into existential dread, bodily fragility, and the uncanny.“I just felt physically weak for the first time in my life,” Karlsson explains, reflecting on personal health struggles that informed the collection. “I wanted the show to reflect that—something raw, dramatic, a bit theatrical, and a bit ridiculous.”
Drawing inspiration from the infamous Kill Bill grave scene, the show opens with a model emerging from a soil-covered pit, a spectacle that Karlsson hopes will strike a visceral chord. To achieve this morbid fantasy, Karlsson worked with a production company to engineer a precise, controlled reveal. “We didn’t want a chaotic collapse,” she says. “We wanted something impactful—like the first hand emerging, the weight of the soil, the slow reveal.”
If the staging is provocative, the collection itself is no less uncompromising. Karlsson has infused it with skeletal references, cutouts that mimic rib cages, and wrinkled leathers reminiscent of distressed skin. Silhouettes are sculptural and distorted, playing with tension between villainous grandeur and fragile femininity. A hunched-back puffer vest creates an exaggerated posture, while skirts feature sharp, unsettling splits inspired by the goth silhouettes of early 2000s subculture (Hot Topic, for the real ones who know).
Footwear, always a moment in Avavav’s shows, reaches a surreal peak this season. The brand’s ongoing partnership with Adidas has produced two wildly exaggerated shoe designs: a warped, distorted take on the classic Superstar and a colossal, buried-looking sneaker with an almost subterranean silhouette. “The idea was that the shoe almost looks like it’s sinking,” Karlsson says. “There’s a bit of a digging theme, obviously.”
Music, as ever, plays a crucial role in Karlsson’s creative process. This season, she found inspiration in Swedish indie rock—particularly “Shoreline”, a brooding track by the underground band Broder Daniel, which will feature in the show’s soundtrack. “It has this dramatic, desperate energy that just fits perfectly,” she explains, adding that eerie organ-heavy church techno will add to the collection’s ominous atmosphere.
Despite its macabre themes, Karlsson sees The Hole as an indulgence in the darker corners of the human experience rather than a statement on mortality. “Sometimes, you have to lean into it,” she says. “It’s not about romanticizing pain, but about making sense of it in a way that feels tangible.” Her work often reflects her personal reality, and after months spent in and out of emergency rooms, this collection became an attempt to process and externalize those feelings.
Given the skyrocketing costs of fashion week presentations, many brands are rethinking the traditional runway format—just look at my London recap for some highlights—but for Karlsson, the spectacle is worth it. “If we weren’t getting so much attention from our shows, I don’t think we’d do them,” she admits. “They take up so much time and money—it’s like putting on a concert, but with no guaranteed encore. But our shows open doors. They’ve led to collaborations, sponsorships, and just general buzz.”
Once the show ends, Karlsson has no grand plans—except for one. “Drinking,” she laughs. “I haven’t had a drink all year because I wanted my head clear for this collection. But after the show? Straight to the afterparty.”
Then it’s off to Nuremberg for Adidas before indulging in something even more sacred than one too many pints: a sauna. “Very Swedish of me, I know.”