Ethel Vaughn is a sportswear brand from Hamburg, Germany founded by Kadda Diedrich in 2010. Diedrich explores late 80s to early 90s fashion and hip-hop with a decidedly modern approach, mixing innovative shapes with an urban avant-garde attitude. Collaborations with diverse international artists and graphic designers offer sharp aesthetic expressions and create a kaleidoscope world made of colors, outspoken prints and shapes.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do. I’m Katrin Diedrich, or Kadda, and I run the fashion label Ethel Vaughn. My collections present an avant-garde range of everyday pieces for men and women with a strong focus on bold prints and clashing textures.
#1 fashion don’t? Flat Ballerina shoes and glitzy hair bands are an absolute no go for me.
If you had to explain your work or brand to a stranger, what would you say? It’s a sportswear brand that stands for visually bold pieces, strong colors and playful patterns for all sexes on the edge of contemporary and avant-garde.
What materials do you use in your work and what is your process like? Most of the time I use sweat fabrics, which we print with our own artworks. I’m also into technical fabrics like mesh, neoprene and nylons. The idea which lies beneath is not just to mix and match opposites — like technical and classic materials — but to work with creative eclecticism and freedom.
What artists or designers are you interested in right now? Contemporary graphic designers and artists like Egy Boy, Axel Pemöller, and Vasya Kolotusha, and the female photographers Iga Drobisz or Lindsay Hamlyn.
What’s your favorite thing about your city? Hamburg is the place where my family is; it’s my home base. I really love the big harbor that is located right in the city center, and the fact that everything here is rather small and close by, so I can take a bike to go from one point to another, which makes living here pretty easy. I always meet somebody I know out on the streets; it feels more like living in a little village than in a city.
What are your thoughts about the fashion scene in Hamburg? Hamburg is not very known for it’s fashion scene like Berlin. Everything here is rather laid back and understated, one might say even boring, but it has its charm too, even though not a lot of people risk to stick out of the crowd with their own style.
What was the last collection you saw that stuck out to you? The Kanye West Adidas Collaboration. Yeezy is the very best I have seen in a long time.
What is your beverage of choice when working in your studio? I have to have my banana-shake like every single day now!
What are you really excited about right now? I’m really looking forward to our upcoming collaborations with Berlin power girls Eve without Adam, Ukrainian graphic designer Vasya Kolotusha and Mother Eleganza, an artist duo from Lithuania.
If you hadn’t become a designer what do you think you’d be doing? Hm, that’s a tough question. I can’t think of anything else. Designing, working with fabrics and being creative is what I love to do!
What are you listening to right now? Right now I’m obsessed with old school hip-hop like Tupac Shakur, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, The Notorious B.I.G. and Eazy!
Can you share one of the best or worst reactions you have gotten as a result of your work? I made a sweater especially for the ladies (a lot of the pieces in my collection are unisex) and I was pretty sure this sweater would be a very good seller and it was, but most of them sold to males! There are always surprises!
