Karin Oèbster – KAYIKO designer

The Austrian avant-garde fashion designer Karin Oèbster pushed through her own ideas about fashion with unusual costumes in her early childhood. Since then she has not lost sight of her goal of making fashion herself. The consequence: moving from the rural idyll of Salzburg to Vienna. During her training as a "women's clothing maker" she worked for the legendary label "Assasyn".

After the master's examination in Graz, she was offered the chance to realize her own ideas for the first time at the Pelzhaus Liska. At that time, many unusual and completely new models for the fur industry were created, which caused a sensation at the fashion shows, but were never produced.

Two years later, the limits were explored and the step into self-employment offered the great opportunity to finally realize all of your own ideas. The confirmation of talent came with the collections designed for the Swiss avant-garde designer Christa de Carouge from 1996 to 1999 – excellent reviews and sold-out collections.

At the same time, Karin Oèbster was already working on her own models, which manifested her preference for the aesthetics of Japanese design. 1998 was the hour of birth of KAYIKO: The first complete collection was presented in Windmühlgasse at the opening of the store.

Inspired by snapshots from her life and the daily “mental cinema” Karin Oèbster creates her own avant-garde fashion cosmos with KAYIKO. She and her label are now among the fixed stars of the Viennese fashion scene, even if the fashion designer shies away from public appearances.

Photo: Mischa Nawrata