Name: Mental health in the flawless world of fashion
Uploaded: 2025-11-30T15:20:01.280Z
Duration: 5 min 8 s
Description: Designer Dennis Chuene is open about being diagnosed with depression – a bold move in the cut-throat world of fashion.

Designer Dennis Chuene is open about being diagnosed with depression – a bold move in the cut-throat world of fashion.

Berlin

Dennis Chueny, a South African fashion designer living in Berlin, faces ongoing challenges with depression while striving to meet the demands of the fashion industry. His personal experiences, including financial struggles and the pressure to deliver collections on time, are reflected in his work, which symbolically incorporates themes of healing and vulnerability.

The fashion industry is described as highly competitive, with increasing demands and little room for mental health issues. Communications expert Florian Müller has launched a campaign to raise awareness about mental health in fashion. Despite setbacks and underappreciation, Chueny continues to pursue his passion, with plans to present his collection in Japan.

Mental health in the flawless world of fashion

Dark, sleek, an eye for detail. The essence of Dennis Chueny's designs. Presenting his collections, however, always poses a challenge for the South African fashion designer. Whether on the catwalk at Berlin Fashion Week, or just in his own showroom, it's never certain that all his pieces will be ready on time. It's a struggle not just to meet the deadline, but also with depression. It was a rollercoaster, especially the past three days. And most importantly, yesterday, because I didn't sleep. It took the wind out of me, but I'm quite happy. The turnout is amazing. People are here. Clothes look great. I got great compliments. People want to get some. Dennis has been living in Germany since 2017. The move to a new country, paired with financial struggles, brought on the depression. A real catch-22. With three weeks before the next show, Dennis is working flat out on his designs. He's not satisfied just yet. He's nervous, anxious, and constantly grappling with depression. How does the Berlin-based designer keep himself going? I force myself to wake up, and I go to work. But if I'm alone here, I collapse to my own thoughts, and there's a couch in the back. I've come in on some mornings, and I just curled up on the couch, and I slept. Turned the lights off, and I just sat in there in misery. For him, work is a form of therapy. Every piece involves extensive handcraft. The visible white seams are one of his trademark features, symbolizing the stitching of wounds. His signature style is deeply connected to wound healing. My design language is called string theory, right? It's inspired by scarification. That is a means of cutting into your skin, and then when it heals, it protrudes. So the skin grows, and then you can start feeling. African tribes, also other tribes that do this as well. From that idea, I create strings. I take the string, that's why I call it string theory, to resemble scarification. At his last show in 2024, Dennis got very personal. He used headphones to share his doubting and anxious thoughts with the audience. But was the audience ready for it? It didn't connect. I was so disappointed. I ran to the back, and I collapsed. And I was in tears. My wife was comforting me, because I had went for therapy for the show to get all the truth, to give a very genuine, vulnerable, authentic show. If there is bad press, if there's judgment, if there's a celebration, I was prepared for both. And when neither happened, it killed me. It destroyed me completely. I just went to a dark place, and it took me a long time to come back out of it. Florian Müller knows what it's like. There's little room for these issues in the fashion world. The communications expert has been in the industry for over 20 years and launched the Mental Health in Fashion campaign. He gives talks on the topic all over the world. There are creatives who experience a lot of pressure in the industry. More and more collections are coming onto the market, creating extreme pressure. There's fierce competition and precarious situations in which people earn little to no money. For me, it's about raising awareness for mental health conditions and structures that make people sick. Dennis has learned to live with his condition. He's showing his latest collection in his own showroom, partly due to cost. It's mainly friends, family and closer clients who are invited, people who appreciate his work and understand his situation. It's a lot of hard work, a lot of hard work, and I don't think people really appreciate that. Dennis does it all by himself, from design to PR. Wow! There's a lot of things that happen behind the curtains. Maybe even they don't sleep, you know, trying to make a deadline. Today, in times of fast fashion, everyone demands everything super cheap, and then something new tomorrow, and for true designers, that's pretty difficult. Despite his health and existential struggles, for Dennis Ciuany, giving up is not an option. There's going to be some turbulence, there's going to be some hardship, there's going to be struggles, and life is supposed to test you to make you stronger every single time. There's light at the end of the tunnel, though. Soon, Dennis will present his fashion in Japan. That's a dream come true for him, and it's given him confidence about the future.

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