Just as the fashion community was patting itself on the back, however, Tillmann Prüfer, Style Director for German supplement Zeitmagazin and opening speaker at the 5th Fashion & Style Conference at Berlin’s Kronprinzenpalais (Crown Prince Palace), spoke in more critical terms. “Fashion is never sufficiently concerned with the direction in which it is heading but more with where it would rather have been yesterday.”

His comments latched onto the “Anti-Fashion” essay penned by Dutch trend expert Li Edelkoort, who gave the fashion world a wake-up call at the Design-Indaba Conference in Cape Town in February of this year. She believes that fashion as we know it has reached the end of the line. She asserts that, ever since fashion lost its connection with what is happening in the world and what people really want, the general public’s interest in fashion has been superseded by a bland interest in clothes. Fashion has long since assumed a position beyond society, living an insular existence. She describes this as a potentially “dangerous step”.

At the Berlin Fashion Week, all attention was on German fashion design and the trade fairs. As the sector bade farewell to Bread and Butter led by Müller, this fashion location is undergoing a reshuffle. Of the many events taking place in Berlin, the Premium Group is strengthening its position still further. It has added an even more professional touch to its flagship trade fair Premium, which featured 1,000 brands and officially welcomed a five per cent increase in visitors compared to the last event in 2015.

It has bolstered its influence still further by snapping up street- and sportswear trade fair “Bright”, whose roots lie in the skateboarding scene. Bright and Seek will continue to show around 600 street-, urban- and progressive menswear brands at the Arena in Berlin. Featuring 646 collections and around 50,000 trade visitors, Panorama just recorded its sixth and most successful edition and has extended its cooperation agreement with Messe Berlin for a further 15 years. A departure to new shores is being promised by the Fashion Council Germany (FCG), an initiative led by Vogue. Following the American and British example, the initiative aims to raise the profile of German fashion design both at home and abroad through promotion and financial support.

The two-day Berliner Mode Salon was visible evidence of this initiative. Staged in collaboration with Vogue, this group exhibition at the Kronprinzenpalais showcased 27 German labels, including Odeeh, Allude, Augustin Teboul, Dawid Tomaszewski and Hien Le.

[Regine Hövelmann]

[ www.fashion-week-berlin.com]