Last week, air raid sirens blared over 300 people sitting around a tarmac in central Berlin. The sirens were followed by the sounds of explosions in the distance, shortly before models wearing clothes by Ukrainian designer Jean Gritsfeldt appeared on the catwalk.
Berlin Fashion Week events were overshadowed by the war in Ukraine. The conflict feels close, just a day’s drive from the show site, and there are also up to 15,000 Ukrainian refugees arriving in the German capital daily.
“Today is not the time to talk about fashion,” Gritsfeldt told his well-heeled audience in a video message broadcast to the venue. He wouldn’t introduce a new collection or try to create trends, he continued, “because when you’re hiding from bombs in shelters, underground, or basements, no one cares what you’re wearing.”
Gritsfeldt, 32, was unable to come to Germany – he remained in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev – but sent instructions to some 30 volunteers on what he wanted on the track. It would be a statement about current events, rather than an actual collection, he explained. In Berlin, volunteers worked in shifts for several days to complete the collection.
“It was really hard, very emotional at times,” said Norma Quinto, who acted as Gritsfeldt’s spokeswoman in Berlin. At one point, it seemed that the designer might come to Germany for a few days. “But she told us, ‘No, I’m not leaving here,’” Quinto recounted.
A model at the Jean Gritsfeldt fashion show in Berlin.
Getty Images for Today
At the end of Gritsfeldt’s show last Wednesday night, the models – all of whom walked for free, wearing simple cotton or jersey looks emblazoned with words like peace, love and respect in English and Ukrainian – carried a huge Ukrainian flag across the runway. They were given a standing ovation.
This was not the only reference to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In her opening speech for the event, Berlin Mayor Franziska Giffey questioned whether it was appropriate to hold a fashion event at a time like this.
“Yes, we can,” he concluded, explaining that the fashion sector could be a sign of solidarity with Ukraine and that art and culture were part of Europe’s democratic values. The government of the city-state of Berlin supported the event with more than 750,000 euros.
During the week, pins in the yellow and blue colors of the Ukrainian flag were handed out, and the event logo was re-dyed in yellow and blue. Many retailers donated 10 percent of last week’s sales profits to Ukrainian causes and also acted as drop-off points for physical donations.
Local designer Marcel Ostertag made an unexpected appearance before his brand’s show. “The situation, as we know, is not easy. It’s about time,” he told the audience gathered at Kraftwerk, a former power plant, now a downtown venue where most of the parades took place. “Because some people are monsters.”
Another designer from Berlin, Kilian Kerner, brought his entire team to the Kraftwerk runway wearing specially printed hoodies, with the word Peace on everyone’s chest. Kerner later sold the clothes and donated the proceeds.
Despite the pall that the war in Europe had thrown over the events, in the end, more than 60 designers from 70 countries played both minor and major roles at Berlin Fashion Week.
The five-day event kicked off with three days of shows at Kraftwerk, interspersed with panel discussions, most often focusing on sustainability and the green future of fashion, clothing shows and consumer-facing events.
Among the eight designers featured at Kraftwerk was reality TV favorite Esther Perbandt. The Berlin-based designer is probably best known outside of Germany as the runner-up in the first season of “Making the Cut,” hosted by Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn.
Other notables included Danny Reinke, whose wild forms with tulle and a deconstructed shoulder elevated his collection away from the feminine, and Finnish designer Sofia Ilmonen, who won the Mercedes-Benz Sustainability Prize at the Hyères festival in France this year.
Some of the most attractive brands for international buyers were shown at what is known as the Berlin Motor Show. This is a static exhibition, installed on the ground floor below the main arena within the Kraftwerk venue, and featuring 31 brands. While many participants were familiar, the exhibit was captivating and featured designer drawings and idea boards.
Overall, Berlin Fashion Week had a more national feel than in previous years, when trade shows run by local company Premium Group drew hundreds of international buyers to the city. In the last two years, Premium Group has distanced itself more and more from the Berlin shows.
For this reason, in recent seasons, Berlin Fashion Week has worked hard on its own image, trying to find an identity more in line with the artistic and party atmosphere of the city. It has also hedged its bets a bit, making some parts of the program business-to-business and others business-to-consumer, the latter an attempt to translate the local publicity Berlin Fashion Week receives into in-store sales and city workshops.
Though a handful of local buyers attended shows and events, industry insiders told WWD they were outnumbered by stylists and editors, along with loyal local customers.
It was not clear whether the publicity generated by the local media was enough to attract shoppers to local stores. Several Berlin-based retailers, who participated in the business-to-consumer part of the week called Studio2Retail, told WWD that they had enjoyed the program but that it hadn’t necessarily translated into additional sales.
“My experience with Studio2Retail was positive,” said Kai Gerhardt, a new designer based in Berlin who opened his studio to potential clients. Mainly, he said, he noticed that his website received more visits. In terms of media attention, fashion week had yet to make a noticeable impact. However, Gerhardt concluded: “I am happy with the initiative and would definitely do it again.”
One of the week’s programs, Fashion Open Studio, which aimed to bring together smaller brands specializing in sustainable products with mentors and advisers, had around 2,000 participants at its various events.
“We have already received feedback from retailers that their collections have proven popular,” said Carina Bischof, one of the organizers of the initiative.
Florian Müller, a Berlin-based consultant who has his own eponymous communications agency and has worked on Berlin Fashion Week events for more than a decade, felt that the sustainability initiative had been particularly successful in terms of that many of the smaller brands in the city had been able to learn from each other and also receive mentorship.
“I think the theme of sustainability is one that can give Berlin Fashion Week a real direction in the future,” Müller suggested.
A look by Berlin designer Bondy shown at Platte.
Annika Yanura / Plate
Meanwhile, a new atelier shop called Platte, near Alexanderplatz, perhaps best captured the legendary creative spirit of Berlin, where anything goes, stay up all night.
The space is sponsored by the city authorities and opened with a vogueing display, in which dancers strutted around wearing local designer labels.
For this fashion week, Platte staged an all-inclusive fashion show in its store windows, with a deliberately diverse selection of models walking and dancing on treadmills as an enthusiastic crowd of guests and passers-by on the street cheered them on. .
“For us, Berlin Fashion Week was a great success,” said Arne Eberle, one of the Platte organizers, enthused by the positive media coverage the co-op received. Sales at the Platte boutique, open since last October, also increased as a result of the project’s increased exposure, Eberle said.
There is no doubt that Berlin has plenty of emerging and niche talent to discover, working with various levels of professionalism. But they are not necessarily found on the catwalks of Berlin Fashion Week. Perhaps, a writer for the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine speculated, “the Berlin avant-garde does not want to be commercialized.”
Asked if he thought Berlin Fashion Week was moving forward to better reflect the city’s unique style and thus find its place among the international array of fashion weeks, Eberle was positive.
“After the [Premium] there were trade shows, there was a lot of thought about how to improve and add more diverse concepts,” Eberle told WWD. “And now there is an increasing number of different platforms, we are one of them, that show young and fresh labels from Berlin. I think we should focus on them and other local designers. Right now this [new direction] it’s just a little bud,” he concluded. “It needs to be nurtured and I really hope it flourishes.”
Source: wwd.com