Babylon Berlin's costume designer named three living Berlin designers on the record — a milliner, a knitwear designer and a menswear label. Two of them still have shops that ship internationally. Neither mentions the show anywhere on their site.
That is a rare combination in this field: a named designer naming named makers, in English, with real businesses at the other end. And essentially nobody has written it up for an English-speaking reader.
What the costume designer said
Pierre-Yves Gayraud has designed the series since 2016. In an interview with an English-language Berlin publication, he named his collaborators directly — which almost no costume designer does.
| Maker | What they made | For |
|---|---|---|
| Fiona Bennett | The green cloche hat; the Moka Efti waitress hats | Charlotte Ritter |
| Claudia Skoda | A knitted bathing suit and other knitwear | Charlotte Ritter |
| Esther Perbandt | A leather coat; a stage outfit | Nikoros and another performer |
| Burkhard Hain, a motorcycle-helmet painter | The painted black hats for the Moka Efti dancers | The dancers |
| H&M | A belt — repurposed into the banana costume | — |
The H&M belt is the detail that tells you how this department actually worked. A high-street belt, taken apart and rebuilt into one of the most memorable costumes in the series.
The makers, and whether you can buy from them
Fiona Bennett — yes, and there is a URL trap
The Berlin milliner behind Charlotte's hats. Her studio is on Potsdamer Straße 83 in Berlin.
Careful with the address. fionabennett.com redirects to fionabennett.de, and that site is dead — it returns a notice that the page is no longer reachable. Plenty of links still point there.
The live shop is shop.fionabennettofficial.com. Prices in euros, working cart, Visa, Mastercard and Klarna, with a region selector.
She does not mention Babylon Berlin. No "as seen in," no collection tied to the show. You are buying from the milliner who made the hats, not a replica of them.
Esther Perbandt — yes, and the shipping is genuinely broad
The Berlin label behind the leather coat and stage outfit. Her site is live with a country and currency selector covering around two hundred markets, so international shipping is real rather than theoretical.
The site makes no reference to the series either. Same situation: the designer is the connection, not the product.
Claudia Skoda — the brand exists, the shop we could not confirm
The knitwear designer — a genuine Berlin institution, the one associated with the Bowie-era scene — made the knitted bathing suit and other pieces for Charlotte.
We could not load her site. It returned nothing on repeated attempts. The brand exists; whether it has a working online shop we cannot tell you, and we are not going to guess.
What this actually means for a reader
Be clear about what is on offer here, because it is not a shopping list.
None of these makers sells a Babylon Berlin piece. There is no licensed collection, no replica, no "as seen in" range. Two of them have shops that will sell you something they made, in the same hands, in the same city — but not the object from the screen.
That is still worth more than most of what this category offers. A Fiona Bennett hat is made by the person who made Charlotte's hat. That is a real connection, and it is honest about being what it is.
The green cloche is the object people want, and it is worth understanding why it works. The cloche is the hat of the late 1920s — it only sits correctly with short hair, which is exactly why it became the emblem of a generation of women who cut theirs. Charlotte wearing one is not set dressing. It is the period's argument about who she is allowed to be, worn on her head.
Why this production had to build rather than buy
Worth understanding, because it explains why the maker names matter more here than on most shows.
Weimar Berlin is not a period you can shop for. A show set in 1985 can raid deadstock and vintage rails; a show set in 1929 cannot, because almost nothing survives in wearable condition and what does exists in single sizes at collector prices. Multiply that by the number of costumes a series of this scale needs — and by the duplicates that filming demands — and buying stops being an option.
So the department made things. And when you are making rather than sourcing, the question changes from which brand to which pair of hands, which is why Gayraud can name individuals at all.
It also explains the H&M belt. A department that builds is a department that takes things apart. A modern belt is not a compromise in that context — it is raw material with the right hardware, bought for £15 and turned into something else entirely. That is a completely different relationship to a brand than product placement, and it is why you will never find a "shop the look" page for this show.
And it is why the Berlin makers are the right answer to the question. The costumes were not sourced from a label with a warehouse. They were made by named people, most of whom still work, in the city the show is about. Buying from them is the closest thing available — and it is a genuinely closer connection than a licensed replica would be.
The music, which is real and which we half-confirmed
Worth including because people search for it, with a caveat we are going to state plainly.
The Moka Efti Orchestra is a genuine fourteen-piece band, founded in 2016 for the series by Nikko Weidemann, Mario Kamien and Sebastian Borkowski. Two albums — Erstausgabe in 2020 and Telegram in 2022 — and "Zu Asche, zu Staub" is the theme. They tour.
Our caveat: we confirmed this from search indexing and ticketing listings, not from the band's own site. Everything above is consistent across sources and almost certainly correct, but it does not meet the standard we hold brand claims to, so we are flagging it rather than presenting it as verified.
If you want the music, that is the easy part — the albums are on the ordinary streaming and record channels.
Why nobody has written this
Two reasons, and they cut in our favour.
The interview is in an English-language Berlin outlet rather than an international fashion title. It does not surface for the searches people actually run, so the names in it have not travelled.
And the commercial payoff looks small. None of these makers sells a show-branded product, so an affiliate-driven site has no reason to write it. That is precisely why it is worth writing: the information is real, correct and unavailable elsewhere in English.
Honest expectation setting: search volume for this is small. We are publishing it because it is true and nobody else has it, not because it will bring traffic. Those are different reasons and it is worth saying which one applies.
FAQ
Who designed the costumes for Babylon Berlin? Pierre-Yves Gayraud, who has worked on the series since 2016. Unusually, he names his individual makers on the record.
Who made Charlotte's hats? Fiona Bennett, a Berlin milliner, made the green cloche and the Moka Efti waitress hats.
Can I buy a Fiona Bennett hat?
Yes, from her live shop at shop.fionabennettofficial.com, in euros with international payment options. Note that fionabennett.com redirects to a dead site — plenty of old links still point there.
Does she sell the Babylon Berlin hat? No. There is no licensed piece or replica. You are buying from the maker, not buying the object from the show.
Who made the leather coat? Esther Perbandt, the Berlin label. Her site is live and ships to around two hundred markets. It makes no mention of the series.
What about the knitwear? Claudia Skoda made the knitted bathing suit and other pieces for Charlotte. We could not load her website to confirm whether there is a working shop.
Was anything from a high-street brand? Yes — an H&M belt, taken apart and rebuilt into the banana costume.
Is the Moka Efti Orchestra a real band? Yes, a fourteen-piece founded in 2016 for the series, with two albums. We confirmed this from listings rather than from the band's own site, so treat the detail as reported rather than verified.