Noneed.project

Cologne · Germany

Victor & Isabel

“The world doesn't need another fashion brand or more clothes. That's how No need came about.”

noneed.project cuts unisex trousers only from deadstock, so each run is limited to whatever fabric is left and, once it sells out, never repeats. Victor Schoenrich and Isabel Horbach built it around that constraint rather than a business plan. Victor is a visual artist who wove tapestries before he ever cut a trouser leg; Isabel came to sewing through a practical problem, trousers were never long enough for her, and taught herself during the pandemic. Neither trained in fashion design; they design on the body instead of on paper.

I have three questions for you, and something in return.

Three questions.

Selected pieces

JOU Cut Off White Pants

€110ledge price

NONEED.PROJECT Clothing · Cologne, Germany

Not another fashion label

Victor Schoenrich comes from visual art, Isabel Horbach from secondhand and her own sewing machine. By their own admission, the two can do anything except fashion design. And still, the cut of their trousers turns heads.

Isabel is tall, and for years could never find trousers in the right length, so she started making her own. But taking the step to a label of her own was anything but obvious. There are already countless sustainable labels, and however well you do it, can you really get it right? The name came out of that doubt.

The world doesn't need another fashion brand, it doesn't really need more clothes, and that's how we arrived at 'no need'.

How they try to do it better

The concept meant to justify one more fashion label could not be simpler. They use only deadstock and turn it into long-lasting trousers, timeless in cut and design. The aim is to make favourites, the kind of piece someone keeps and wears for a lifetime. Like other deadstock labels, what can exist at all is dictated by the fabric on hand. Sometimes only fifty metres of a cloth are left. Nothing is restocked: once a fabric is used up, those trousers are gone for good.

Every piece carries a number that traces back to where its fabric came from. The straight and wide cuts come from a small atelier in Morocco, which the two found over Google on a two-month trip through the country in 2024; they drove there and introduced themselves. There, a single person sews each pair, from the first stitch to the last. Other cuts are made in Germany.