AFFLICTION

Love Berlin is a designer and creative director that studied at the Wilson School of Design at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Vancouver. She has developed a strong and varied background featuring bridal wear, activewear and graphic design.

Image by JCI Alumni

At the core of Berlin’s practice is a fascination with the human body. She describes her inspiration as rooted in movement, anatomy and the quiet complexity of how muscles, bones and joints work together to create expression. This focus translates into garments that are feel sculptural yet fluid, designed to follow the natural rhythm of the body rather than restrict it. Her collections often explore how clothing can become an extension of physical and emotional states, rather than simply an external layer.

Image by Analissa Longoria, WHITE HORSE

Her collection Affliction stands as one of her most personal and conceptually charged works. She describes it as an expression of longing, sacrifice and the painful devotion that creative work can demand, as per her statement for Fashion Art Toronto. Berlin explains that the inspiration came from the intensity and labour required to build a name within the fashion industry, where creative identity is often shaped through pressure and emotional investment.

She speaks openly about themes of torment within her work, suggesting that creation itself can become a form of self sacrifice. In her view, artists often use their own emotional and physical endurance as material, turning lived experience into visual language. This idea is reflected in the construction of her garments, which aim to communicate struggle and transformation through form, texture and detail.

Image by JCI Alumni

Sustainability is also central to Berlin’s design philosophy. She emphasises that all pieces are made using sustainable or recycled materials, reinforcing her belief that meaningful fashion does not require excess waste. Any synthetic fabrics used were sourced exclusively from deadstock materials, while all fur used in her work is vintage and repurposed rather than newly produced. This approach shows a growing awareness within the industry of the need to balance creative expression with environmental responsibility.

The Affliction collection is visually defined by flowing gowns, lightweight drapes and a sense of progression through emotional states. Each sequence of garments is designed to represent transformation, beginning with forms that feel strong and structured before gradually shifting into more fragile and shredded silhouettes. This evolution is reinforced through distressed detailing, including splashes of red tones along hems and the use of bare feet in styling, which Berlin uses to symbolise rawness, vulnerability and the physical toll of artistic dedication.

Image by JCI Alumni

Through this body of work, Love Berlin positions fashion as both narrative and experience. Her designs explore the tension between beauty and discomfort, control and surrender, highlighting the emotional labour embedded within creative industries. Rather than presenting fashion as purely aesthetic, her work frames it as a lived process shaped by endurance, identity and transformation.