Logo Fashion.at

10 September 2025

Porcelain Whispers: Akris’ Albert Kriemler Designs for the 2026 New Year’s Concert Ballet

Vienna State Ballet dancers Alaia Rogers-Maman, Victor Cagnin, Gaia Fredianelli, Calogero Failla, Natalya Butchko, Géraud Wielick, Ketevan Papava, and Timoor Afshar with choreographer John Neumeier at the MAK, rehearsing for the 2026 New Year’s Concert ballet.

The Countdown Is On

Time moves quickly at the end of the year — and so do preparations for Austria's most-watched cultural export: the annual New Year's Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic. Produced by ORF and broadcast to more than 90 countries, the concert reaches over 50 million viewers worldwide. Since 1959, the tradition has included ballet performances, adding a visual counterpart to the waltzes and polkas of Johann Strauss and his contemporaries.

An Illustrious Line of Designers

The ballet's costumes have become a stage for some of the world's most celebrated designers. Austrian names like Arthur Arbesser and Susanne Bisovsky have created unforgettable looks, joined by international couture legends including Christian Lacroix, Valentino, and Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood. This year, Swiss designer Albert Kriemler, creative director of Akris, joins this illustrious roster — again. Kriemler's first time creating costumes for the ballet was twenty years ago.

Designs as Light as a Breath

For the 2026 edition, Kriemler created costumes that seem almost weightless, as if painted with air. Their delicate floral patterns are inspired by the rose motifs of the k. k. Wiener Porzellanmanufaktur, a design tradition dating back to the 18th century and reinterpreted over centuries. The flowing silhouettes evoke the fragile beauty of Viennese porcelain — decorative, but never static — ready to dance. For those familiar with Kriemler's Spring/Summer 2024 collection, the floral motifs may also recall the work of Wiener Werkstätte artist Felice Rix-Ueno, whose designs were celebrated two years ago in the MAK exhibition Stars, Feathers, Tassels, supported by Akris.

MAK as a Stage

The MAK – Museum of Applied Arts serves as a filming location for this year's ballet, its Säulenhalle, library, and galleries transformed into dance sets for choreographer John Neumeier and the Vienna State Ballet. This year’s ballet costume designer, Albert Kriemler, is no newcomer to working with choreographer John Neumeier. Their collaboration began in 2005 for the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Concert, and has since blossomed into nearly two decades of joint creative ventures. (More details can be found on akris.com.) The preview images released this week offer a glimpse behind the scenes, showing the making of the sequences set to Johann Strauss II's waltz Rosen aus dem Süden that will be broadcast as part of the New Year's Concert.

And while the date and broadcast time — January 1 at 11:15 CET — stay reassuringly unchanged, there is something new to circle in the calendar: a very Viennese way to start the year at the MAK. Visitors are invited at 10:45 for an introduction to the museum's history, followed by guided tours through the filming locations of the ballet sequences, before taking their seats in the Säulenhalle to watch the live broadcast. A fitting way to let Strauss' waltzes set the rhythm for the first morning of 2026.


Image: Members of the Vienna State Ballet rehearse for the 2026 New Year’s Concert ballet, choreographed by John Neumeier, at the MAK Säulenhalle in Vienna. Alaia Rogers-Maman, Victor Cagnin, Gaia Fredianelli, Calogero Failla, Natalya Butchko, Géraud Wielick, Ketevan Papava, and Timoor Afshar, together with choreographer John Neumeier. Photo: © ORF/Thomas Jantzen