MONAMOBILE

In this interview, we delve into the world of MONAMOBILE, who share her inspirations and unique perspectives.

Monamobile

1. Introduce Yourself to the Casawi Community: What drives you? What's your artistic vision, and what sets you apart from the crowd?

We‘re Monamobile (Mona Gutheil & Maximilian Benz) and we hope we can give you an idea about who we are and what we do in this interview! Our starting point and design philosophy always revolve around a mobile object and the corresponding reference clothing of a stereotype. As de- signers, we bear enormous responsibility because we create something new and bring it into the world. For us, our work only has a reason to exist if it truly offers a new combination of products and serves a purpose—not a design that has already been replicated a hundred times. This is what drives us: creating something new, always with a touch of satire.

2. City Inspirations: How has your city influenced your artistic path? Share how its streets, culture, and energy have molded your work.

Coming from a very conservative village, Berlin felt like an entirely new world full of inspiration. Here, especially places like the subway, you see the most unusual combinations of objects and clothing. This boldness in individuality and expression deeply impressed both of us. Berlin offers a sense of freedom that we had never experienced before. Its energy and openness allows to fully express yourself and explore new creative paths.

3. Creative Process: What fuels your creativity? Whether it's a ritual, a muse, or a moment of clarity, we're keen to learn.

Our main inspiration are mobile objects and the stereotypical reference clothing associated with them. We are heavily inspired by gadgets and gimmicks, that often promise function, but in reality they become superfluous after a few uses. We find it exciting to put them in a different context and thus give them back their value.

4. City Lifestyle and Art: How the places you lived influenced your career and work?

As mentioned earlier, Berlin has had a significant impact on us and our careers, particularly through our time at university. Looking back, we’re really happy with how we chose to spend our studies. We both kind of went into different directions, Max in the more technical, Mona more into the artistic conceptual direction. While we developed our design language separately, we found they mix easily and through our skill sets we complement each others strengths so well. In that way Berlin out of all the places we’ve lived in definitely helped shape us the most and bring us together making monamobile not just a project but our joint brand.

5. Latest or Upcoming Projects: Give us a glimpse into your current endeavors and what lies ahead on your creative journey.

2025 has so much in store! As for the future of Monamobile, we don’t want to become a typical fa- shion brand that follows seasons ending in fashion shows — that often leads to an endless cycle. For us, it’s more exciting to stay in the conceptual realm, releasing a balance between limited edi- tion products or small ready-to-wear capsule collections and continuing to offer custom designs as well as installations.