German fashion design under one roof
It’s not easy for a city to establish its place as a relevant location in the fashion calendar. From Sao Paolo to Kiev, there are so many fashion weeks there is simply not enough time for international editors and buyers to attend all of them. They’re having difficulties with fitting in Milan, Paris, London and New York.
Berlin is no exception. Ever since a fashion week has been installed in 2007, the German capital has been fighting for international attention and struggling to find its identity. Over the last seasons though, a new self-confidence seems to have evolved. Berlin has stopped trying to be the next London or Paris. It seems that it has understood this is not going to happen.
Instead, it turns into what it should have been in the first place: a platform for the best fashion design the country has to offer – from independent designers like Hien Le or Vladimir Karaleev to more established brands like Odeeh or Escada – instead of more or less successfully shipping in big names from abroad.
Der Berliner Modesalon plays a major role in this process, where a curated selection of German fashion designers show their collections during Berlin Fashion Week under one roof. Whether that will eventually result in more international attention needs to be seen. But it certainly does one thing: helping to give German fashion design a profile and a face.
Words: Björn Lüdtke
