In 2003 he presented his personal vision of the links between fashion and art in the Moderne Mode exhibition at the Ursula Blicke Foundation in Germany. In 2004 a book on Willhelm’s early career was published by Lukas & Sternberg. He has since continued to work in various directions, designing a school uniform for the orphans’ aid association Misericordia, launching his first shoe collection and creating an apparel line for the online sales site YOOX.com. He designed Björk’s clothing for her 2007 World Tour and the sculptural outfit the artist wore on the sleeve of her album Volta, in partnership with the photographer Nick Knight.

In 2006, Bernhard Willhelm opened his first flagship store in Tokyo, designed in partnership with Cyril Duval. In the same year he received the Great Indoors Award for the best shop design from Frame magazine.

Many other artistic partnerships have marked his rich and striking career, including an exhibition in Sweden with the Berlin artist Carsten Fock or costumes for a play in Berlin adapted from the work of Fassbinder.

A retrospective of Willhelm’s work, Het totaal rappel, was shown at the Antwerp Fashion Museum in 2007 and 2008. The exhibition and the book were designed together with the Swiss artists Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs, and the book won the Best-Looking Swiss Book Award. At the same time he presented the film Red rose pink donkey in partnership with Dirk Bonn at the Athens Biennale, and in 2008 he presented Nick Knight’s film Men in tights during the New York Fashion Week.

In 2008 Bernhard Willhelm launched a line of shoes together with Camper, entitled Bernhard Willhelm-Camper-together. In 2009 and 2010 a new retrospective exhibition at the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands retraced his career and that of his associate Jutta Kraus.