“Our mission,” says Olaf Schmidt, Vice President of Textiles and Textile Technologies at Messe Frankfurt, “is to establish the global hub for fashion, sustainability and innovation at Kraftwerk in Berlin.

To achieve this, we have not only brought together the successful Greenshowroom and Ethical Fashion Show formats to form the new tradeshow brand Neonyt, but also choreographed a multifaceted, contemporary and pioneering overall concept that is all about interaction, interconnectivity and influence.

The now confirmed partners and speakers from initiatives and companies like the Otto Group, the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, Tchibo and WWF show that we are heading in the right direction with Neonyt.”

Fashionsustain: We are water.

The blue planet, our Earth. Around two thirds of its surface are covered in water. The adult human body is also made up of around 70 percent water. Without water there would be no agriculture, no industry – and no life. But what happens when water becomes scarce? The upcoming edition of Fashionsustain is dedicated to the topic of water, which will have a decisive impact on our future. Visitors can look forward to a high-profile programme and speaker line-up:

Clare Press, Sustainability Editor-at-Large for Vogue Australia, book author and fair-fashion activist, will be opening the conference with her keynote “We Are Water. Inspiration & Respiration.” Following that, the first session of the day will begin with the topic “Water. Risks and Solutions.” First of all, the topic of “Water X Fashion” will be discussed by Philipp Wagnitz, Director of International Freshwater Resources of WWF together with Marijke Schöttmer, Senior Manager of Environmental Protection at Tchibo, Ulf Jaeckel, Head of the Sustainable Consumer Protection and Product-related Environmental Protection division at the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) – BMU and Amira Jehia, co-founder of the ‘no cotton brand’ Blue Ben. In the subsequent panel “Water Stewardship. Industry collaborations on the rise”, Lauren Zahringer, Business Development Manager of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, Alexis Morgan, Global Water Stewardship Lead at WWF, Micke Magnusson, CEO of We are Spin Dye, and other panellists will be casting a glance at collaborative industry initiatives.

The afternoon will be starting with session 2, which will explore the topic of “Denim, Cotton and the Water”

in the first panel of this block, Patrick Duffy, founder of Global Fashion Exchange, Patrick Hohmann, President of the Supervisory Board and founder of Remei AG, Dietrich Weigel, founder of Good Society, Gigi Caccia, President of PureDenim (formerly known as ItalDenim), and others will be looking for answers to the question: “Can denim go organic?”. In a subsequent case study, Karl Borgschulze, Managing Director of CSI Ltd., together with participating companies, will be showing the example of a local denim supply chain in Pakistan.

To conclude the conference day, session 3 “Circularity in Full Flow?” will be dedicated to the omnipresent topic of the circular economy in two panels.

To begin with, in the discussion panel “Better fibres. Better waste?”, representatives from innovatively thinking companies like Linus Mueller, EU Marketing/R&D at Circular Systems, Sabine Feuerer, Director Apparel at Sympatex and Linn Frisinger, founder and CEO of Swedish Stockings, will not only be questioning the contemporary paradigm of the linear value creation model, but also whether new fibres – as is often claimed – are automatically associated with a better environmental footprint.

Where do we go from now?

In the panel afterwards, moderator Clare Press will be asking her fellow panellists, including Alex Nolte, founder of the Stop! Micro Waste Initiative and co-founder of the Langbrett brand, Heike Vesper, Director of the Marine Programme at WWF and Kirsten Brodde, Head of the Greenpeace Detox Campaign, the forward-looking question: “We are water, oceans, rivers — and pollutants. Where do we go from now?”

The Fashionsustain conference is held in cooperation with #Fashiontech by the Premium Group, which focuses on digital solutions for marketing and retail, as well as general digital market trends and is also taking place at Kraftwerk on 15 January 2019.

At a glance

The ideas think-tank of the future – the Thinkathon is a space for open exchange and creative thinking processes during the global hub Neonyt. In this collaborative design-thinking format, twice a year multidisciplinary teams develop neo-new approaches for the sustainability transformation of the fashion and textile industry. Industry experts work intensively on the tasks set by leading industry, retail and technology companies as well as associations and organisations, which revolve around the topics of fashion, sustainability, innovation and technology. In the shortest time and ensuring mutual confidentiality, the Thinkathon teams come up with highly innovative and industry-relevant solutions. The result is an interdisciplinary discussion about the future of fashion – today.

Technology, sustainability and innovation are important drivers of the fashion and textile industry that will revolutionise the sector and its processes and production methods. On 16 January 2019, international conference format Fashionsustain will be dedicated to precisely these topics, with a particular focus on the omnipresent challenges regarding sustainable water management currently facing the textile industry. The conference, organised by Messe Frankfurt, will be showing how the interplay of collaboration and competition for new and sustainable technologies is leading to innovations that are driving the paradigm shift of the industry.

Neonyt, the global hub for fashion, sustainability and innovation (from 15-17 January 2019), is made up of the Neonyt Trade Fair, the conferences Fashionsustain by Messe Frankfurt and #Fashiontech by the Premium Group as well as the design-thinking format Thinkathon, the Neonyt Fashion Show, Showcases, the influencer and blogger event Prepeek, networking events and last but not least, the Neonyt Party. The hub is taking over from the former trade fair duo Ethical Fashion Show Berlin and Greenshowroom.

Fashionsustain

16 January 2019

10:00 am – 6:00 pm

Kraftwerk Berlin

Köpenicker Strasse 70

10179 Berlin

Neonyt - The global hub for fashion, sustainability and innovation

15 – 17 January 2019 in Berlin