This week, Berlin Fashion Week, which includes business seminars, art installations and the Sustainable Fashion Summit, officially kicks off. Projekt Zukunft (Project Future), a creative digital industry project supported by the Berlin government, provided 790,000 euros in funding for the week, and Project Director Tanja Muehlhans told WWD: "At Berlin Fashion Week, everyone will have something to gain, especially after two years of the epidemic, there is an increasing desire for real communication. ”
In addition, Tanja Muehlhans said that with the addition of creative people from different disciplines, such as music, art, sustainability and emerging technologies, a sense of community that is different is becoming clearer at Berlin Fashion Week.
However, despite this, it is undeniable that whether it is Berlin or Frankfurt Fashion Week, these two major fashion events belonging to Germany are still incomparable to the popularity and attention of the international stage such as Milan and Paris, so that even German designers or brands have been keen to run to Milan, Paris and other prestigious fashion weeks in the past.
Marcell von Berlin's Fall/Winter 2021 collection
What's more, in the past two years, the two major fashion weeks in Berlin and Frankfurt have made the competition for the "German Fashion Capital" unstable based on the continuous turmoil and change within the organizers. With the new season of Berlin Fashion Week kicking off again, where will the German fashion industry, which is mired in a divided competitive landscape, head?
As early as June 2020, Premium Group, which had been the organizer of Berlin Fashion Week, announced that it would move to Frankfurt from 2021 and change its name to "Frankfurt Fashion Week". Premium Group has been hosting trade fairs in Berlin since 2003 and together with Neonyt, a sustainable fashion show managed by Messe Frankfurt, it forms an important part of Berlin Fashion Week.
As a result, with the transfer of physical business such as trade fairs, it will undoubtedly bring a large number of international customers and international discourse power to Frankfurt. The mayor of Frankfurt, Peter Feldmann, said in a statement: "This will transform Frankfurt from an international financial center into a new hotspot for international fashion and lifestyle, and create a new international fashion metropolis," saying that the move offers the city of Frankfurt "a unique opportunity", with the twice-yearly high-end fashion event bringing more than 200 million euros in revenue to the region, while the cities of Hesse and Frankfurt will invest 10 million euros in Fashion Week over the next three years.
Frankfurt Fashion Week is a sustainability-themed Neonyt fair
Tarek Al-Wazir, the economy minister of the state of Hesse, where Frankfurt is located, also said that the move will also facilitate the region's recovery from the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as soon as possible, "which sends an important and positive signal to the industry severely affected by the epidemic." ”
However, this does not mean that in recent years, the german fashion industry has been divided into cities as a gathering place, and the competition has "one side singing and one side appearing".
The mixed reactions and controversies within and outside the industry have not stopped – as some insiders have said, the departure of premium group will allow Berlin to move away from commercial control and instead focus more on creativity; but others are concerned about the commercial benefits of Berlin Fashion Week after the loss of Premium Group, after the trade fair organized by Premium Group will bring around 70,000 visitors and 240 million euros worth of transactions to Berlin every year.
Spring/Summer 2022 Berlin Fashion Week
At the same time, there is no shortage of questions about the city of Frankfurt – is Frankfurt, known as the "financial capital of Germany", suitable for fashion weeks?
In fact, under the influence of the epidemic, Frankfurt has not been given a real opportunity to prove itself. For example, in 2020 and 2021, Frankfurt Fashion Week has been relying on online platform launches, there are only a few physical shows, and Premium Group's trade fair has not been officially launched, let alone bringing any substantial international customers or voice to Frankfurt.
In particular, after the news of premium group's announcement of its return to Berlin in January this year, it once again brought shock and uncertainty to the future of the German fashion industry – it is worth noting that Premium Group, which returned to Berlin, did not turn to the embrace of Berlin Fashion Week and serve as the organizer, but independently organized a series of trade fairs. This has formed a "three-legged" situation between Berlin and Frankfurt Fashion Week, which are already in "differentiated competition", and the relatively scattered state of local fashion platforms is a hundred flowers blooming, or eroding each other?
Based on this, there have been many discussions about Premium Group's "disloyalty" to Frankfurt.
The event will be broadcast live at Frankfurt Fashion Week in January 2022
A source at a large online retailer told WWD: "We've heard before that many brands are reluctant to move immediately, so Premium Group can't get enough exhibitors in Frankfurt. A person engaged in fashion media even said bluntly: "All this stems from the exchange of interests." ”
In response, Anita Tillmann, head of Premium Group, refuted the rumors to WWD, saying: "It has nothing to do with money. If you can make money just by changing locations, it's all too simple. He also said that although Premium Group left Frankfurt, it still maintained a close and good relationship with Messe Frankfurt, and moved back to Berlin as a result of comprehensive consideration of the company's trade fair in the global epidemic situation. At the same time, the new Berlin Senate's openness to premium group needs has also provided objective support for premium group's return to Berlin.
Olaf Schmidt, vice president of textiles and textile technology at Frankfurt Messe, who is also in charge of the fashion trade business, further confirmed this, saying in an email with WWD: "We have no doubts about the concept and the future development prospects of both sides, and the only thing that has bothered us is the epidemic. ”
Whether it is the Premium Group, which has been holding trade fairs in Berlin since 2003, or the Berlin Fashion Week, which has been held since 2007, the relatively short development history determines that in terms of resources and operating strength, it is temporarily difficult to compete with Milan, Paris and other fashion week platforms, so it is impossible to guarantee the international standards of the participating brands, as well as the international attention and market results that come with it.
The impact of the epidemic in the past two years, as well as the differentiation and turmoil brought by the Premium Group in Berlin and Frankfurt, can also be regarded as "worse" to some extent, and even bring considerable impact and uncertainty to the city's commercial development.
In September 2021, Berlin Fashion Week restarted with a physical show
But through WWD's communication with the organizers of the relevant platforms and local designers, although the road ahead is not clear, there is still no lack of positive optimism about the future of the German fashion industry - the current turmoil and uncertainty may be the only way forward in the exploration. As Tanja Muehlhans puts it: "For Germany, the current situation in the fashion industry is indeed a bit uneasy, but let us not forget that the global fashion industry is in a state of change and restructuring. ”
In addition, Magdalena Schaffrin, a sustainability expert and organizer of the Berlin Fashion Week 202030 Fashion Summit, also said that the current situation is likely to cause some confusion in the market, "but I believe that with the next one or two seasons, maybe these chaos can be solved one by one in the run-in." ”
Berlin-based designer Carina Bischof also told WWD: "Perhaps this confusion is necessary so that we can have a clearer and more specific position in the future." I think right now we're in a very important transformation process. The face of global fashion weeks is changing. For Premium Group's return to Berlin, she believes that this is also a testament to Berlin's growing international image.
So where will the German fashion industry go in the future? Is it by emphasizing independence and pursuing a hundred flowers and complementing each other in differentiation? Or is it a collective force that unites stakeholders and presents a more collective force?
While it's still inferred, it may also be one of the differentiating qualities of the German fashion industry, as Tillmann puts it: "Fashion week needs to be defined differently, and so do trade fairs." ”WWD
(Thanks to Cathrin Schaer for his contribution to this article)
Written by yalta
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