DressFM streams 90s grunge and alternative rock as part of an instore radio channel that clothing retailer New Yorker runs across its stores in Germany and beyond, produced in partnership with Berlin's FluxFM. It is, on the surface, a straightforward retail soundtrack. Underneath, it carries a genre that spent much of its early life actively refusing to be sold as fashion at all.
A Denim Shop That Became a Continental Retailer
New Yorker traces back to 1971, when Tilmar Hansen and Michael Simson opened the first branch as a denim shop in Flensburg, Germany. Headquartered today in Braunschweig, the company grew into a genuine European fashion chain, operating over a thousand stores across dozens of countries and employing more than 23,000 people, with sponsorships extending into the Braunschweig-based New Yorker Lions football club and the international Battle of the Year breakdance competition.
Berlin's Alternative Station as the Retail Soundtrack
For the music running through its stores, New Yorker turned to FluxFM, a Berlin station that launched in 2006 under the name Motor FM before rebranding to FluxFM in 2011, built specifically around alternative, indie and punk programming rather than mainstream chart radio. DressFM is one of the genre-specific instore channels that partnership produces, this one dedicated entirely to 90s grunge and alt-rock rather than a general retail playlist.
The Genre That Fought Being Fashion
Grunge's relationship with the fashion industry has always been uneasy. When Marc Jacobs sent a grunge-inspired collection down the runway for Perry Ellis in November 1992, translating thrift-store flannel into silk and cashmere, the reaction split between fascination and open contempt. Fashion editor Suzy Menkes handed out "Grunge is Ghastly" pins at Milan Fashion Week in protest. When Jacobs sent samples from the line to Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, Love later told WWD the pair burned them, saying, "We were punkers, we didn't like that kind of thing." The collection reportedly got Jacobs fired from Perry Ellis before it eventually helped launch his own label.
The Irony Still Playing in Store
Three decades after Cobain and Love burned a designer's tribute to their scene, a European fast-fashion chain runs a dedicated grunge radio channel through its checkout speakers. DressFM does not resolve that old tension between a genre built on rejecting commercial polish and an industry built entirely around selling it. It just keeps the music playing anyway.