‘Step inside the Vienna stage. You might call it a Gesamtkunstwerk,’ says costume designer Susanne Bisovsky of her cosmopolitan atelier. Located in the city’s seventh district – once the heart of a thriving silk industry – the studio is part salon, part archive and entirely enchanting. Susanne and her partner, Joseph Bonwit Gerger, stumbled on the space after scouring listings. ‘We found it in the newspaper,’ she recalls. ‘You search and search, and suddenly, there it is – a chance. The five-metre-high ceilings were what drew us. For a bourgeois apartment, that’s extraordinary. It let us store everything we’d collected.’
The atelier occupies the first floor of a concrete building dating from about 1900. The couple lives above it in an apartment surrounded by views of the rolling Vienna hills. The distinction between work and home is nonexistent. ‘We never separate,’ she says. ‘This is where we create, live and dream.’ When they first moved in, the pair would sleep within the confines of the salon ‘surrounded by ribbons, tulle and mannequins’.
Today, velvety swathes, ripples of colour and intricate patterns unfurl in the wings, drawing the eye from embroidered fabrics to hand-crocheted flowers bowing from vases. Not even Marco Zanuso’s armchairs have escaped what she describes as a ‘Susanne frill’. Anchoring a waiting space, they have been draped with blooming floral textiles woven in Salzburg. ‘The chairs were a gift during my student years,’ Bisovsky explains. We designed the fabric later and had them re-covered with ribbon roses.’
Awaiting centre stage, are mannequins kitted out in pleated couture. Behind a woodland mural backdrop created from a damaged Dutch painting stands a lacquered Viennese bar that was found in a scrapyard. Above it, bouquets of crocheted blossoms collected from flea markets over the decades dangle, with roses sprouting from unexpected crevices. ‘These flowers are the work of hundreds of women,’ Susanne notes, ‘The rose is universal. It’s in Russian headscarves, Chinese ceramics and Islamic art. It transcends culture.’ Her love of this particular perennial is most apparent in the bespoke curtains and chair upholstery in the salon, where the floral patterns unfold. ‘We design most of our fabrics,’ Susanne adds. ‘The rose always finds its way in.’
While the atelier feels rooted in Austria, its narrative extends far beyond. Susanne has dressed ballet dancers for the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Concert and designed performance outfits for Milan’s Teatro alla Scala. Her gowns have also appeared on such red carpets such as that of the acclaimed Met Gala, and the late Iris Apfel prized her courageous craftsmanship. The designer’s creations often combine Victorian silhouettes with Slavic folk patterns, inventing garments informed by her encyclopaedic knowledge of historical fashions. ‘It’s not about preserving the past,’ she says. ‘It’s about reinventing it through an authentic lens.’
Down a hallway, tulle petticoats hang from the ceiling, casting soft shadows over shelves groaning beneath the weight of archival fabrics. ‘We call it the swallow’s nest,’ she muses. ‘It’s chaos, but it’s our chaos.’ Beneath the skyline of skirts are boxes of lace, brooches and embroidered trims, some sourced from Vienna’s flea markets, others from Textil Müller, where surplus and bankrupt stock can be found crammed inside an actual bus. ‘He bought half of Europe,’ she says of the late owner. ‘You could find Paco Rabanne silks alongside theatrical costumes from the 1900s.’
If the salon were a theatre, the kitchen would be its dressing room: ‘This is our practical playroom,’ laughs Susanne. Biscuit tins from the 1950s reflect the sunlight, while Russian lacquer trays and Hungarian Thonet dining chairs lend an air of functional fashion. The concrete floor, painted with stencilled petals, nods to Susanne’s Slavic ancestry, a thread that runs through her work. Devotional imagery, from painted Madonnas to pictures of Jesus, adds a spiritual dimension. ‘We’re not conventionally religious,’ she explains, ‘but these figures have a protective aura.’ A shelf props a series of mismatched plates and glasses in a corner. ‘We don’t do systems,’ Susanne says, ‘If a glass breaks, we take another. Everything here is used – it’s about finding beauty in imperfection’.
The designer’s creative process is as layered as her designs. ‘Inspiration comes from everything. A beam of sunlight, a walk through the city, or the stories behind the objects we collect’. Her portfolio of theatrical apparel read like chapters in a novel: the collections ‘Chic Slavique’ (2010), ‘The Beautiful Vienna Woman’ (2017) and ‘Iconic’ (2023) have graced opera stages and ballrooms. Her work will feature next year at the Hotel Sacher – she has designed a bespoke range for the hotel’s opera-ball fashion show. ‘After 30 years, we’ve finally been asked,’ Susanne laughs, ‘It was an opportunity to bring a certain level of craftsmanship to the season.’
Even the most minor details in the atelier reflect Susanne’s ethos of transformation. In the confines of a white bathroom, tiles are embellished with decals from the former East Germany and vintage cigarette boxes have been repurposed as tiny totems for daily inspiration. And then, in the kitchen, an oven is a window for a pastoral still life. ‘It’s not about creating a museum,’ she insists. ‘It’s about creating a world that inspires.’
In this district of Vienna, surrounded by the ghosts of silk manufacturers and the hum of sewing machines, Susanne Bisovsky has stitched together a universe. She refers to this space as being like ‘an organism’ and, in turn, an extension of her work. ‘This isn’t just about making clothes,’ she says, ‘It’s about making memories that have a place historically.’
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