BERLIN — Cancellation of the next Bread & Butter Berlin streetwear show has completely shaken up the women’s trade fair scene in Germany. The announcement came as a shock to many in the city, who fear the decision could jeopardize the capital’s recent development into a fashion center. But the news was welcomed by other German trade show organizers and has led to a scramble to pick up the canceled fair’s would-be visitors and exhibitors.
On Oct. 24, Bread & Butter announced that the trade fair in Berlin, originally scheduled for Jan. 26 to 28, would be pulled due to insufficient interest from exhibitors. “It was a sad decision to have to make because I live here, and there is no city which I have ever identified with as much as Berlin,” said Karl-Heinz Müller, founder and managing director of Bread & Butter. “But we noticed that international marketing budgets have decided for Barcelona, and we had to have the courage to act responsibly to exhibitors and say it didn’t make any sense to hold the fair in Berlin.”
But just weeks later, the situation was confused further by rumors that Bread & Butter might well be planning a smaller Berlin event after all. According to the weekly German fashion trade magazine TextilWirtschaft, industry sources believe around 100 selected labels will be exhibiting in an electricity power station in the city center. The show would take up around 236,806 square feet and include live music performances. When asked about the rumors, Danielle DeBie, Bread & Butter’s director of communication, declined to give a comment. “This information has not come from us,” she said. While not categorically ruling out a Berlin event, she added: “At the moment, there is nothing to announce.”
The official word from Bread & Butter is that energies will now be concentrated on the Barcelona show, which was first held in summer 2005. This event was originally meant to cater to southern European markets, with Berlin looking to northern and Eastern Europe. Müller said he was overwhelmed by the success of Barcelona, which attracted 45,000 visitors in July 2005, with numbers rising to 60,000 at the last show this past July. In view of the fact that the last Berlin show in July attracted a mere 20,000 visitors, many industry watchers were not so surprised by the decision to cancel the German event.
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“We now realize that one international streetwear event is enough, and that this idea of a north-south axis doesn’t really work,” said Müller.
And certainly in an age of low-cost European flights, whether a visitor’s plane journey is half an hour longer makes little difference to the decision to attend a show or not.
But Bread & Butter’s organizers are adamant that the headquarters, with roughly 100 staff members, will remain in Berlin. The company is now looking to expand its premises near Hackescher Markt in Mitte by taking over the ground floor of the Münzstrasse office building, currently occupied by Adidas, and turning it into something along the lines of a private members’ club.
Organizers of the other major trade fair in the German capital, the luxury contemporary apparel show Premium, which will be held Jan. 26 to 28, were pleased with the cancellation of Bread & Butter Berlin, seeing it as an opportunity to expand. “It’s great news for us,” said Premium’s co-founder, Anita Bachelin. “We have already had commitment from a number of major labels who, until now, exhibited at Bread & Butter.”
But, considering that it is mainly thanks to Bread & Butter’s successful move to Berlin in January 2003 that trade shows started coming to the capital in the first place, there are fears that the city will now lose its positioning as a burgeoning center of fashion. Bachelin does not agree.
“Over the last few years Berlin has established a profile which is culturally unique as a source of inspiration and can’t be compared to Paris, London or anywhere in Scandinavia. Whether Bread & Butter is here or not won’t change that,” she said, admitting that, until a year ago, Premium would not have been up to the job of being the only big show in Berlin. “But today we accept this challenge thankfully. It’s a super chance for the city.”
To fill the gap left by Bread & Butter, Premium is expanding. A new location housing between 120 and 150 labels will be opened in a former aircraft hanger in the iconic Thirties airport Tempelhof. The main location in the station at Gleisdreieck now will house more than 700 labels. Premium has successfully managed to take over where Bread & Butter left off by picking up leading denim brands including G-Star, Replay, Diesel, Miss Sixty, Aemkei, Ed Hardy and Nolita.
Berlin’s smaller fairs also are making the most of the void left behind by Bread & Butter. Spirit of Fashion, which shows alternative and underground fashion, now will open up to streetwear brands. The Jan. 26 to 28 show will host approximately 350 exhibitors, a threefold increase over the previous event in July, and cater to around 3,500 visitors. To accommodate this growth, the fair is moving to a new location in the Arena Berlin, taking the main hall rather than the smaller hall organizers originally planned to use. Until now the fair was located around the corner from Bread & Butter in Spandau, on the outskirts of western Berlin. “It’ll be a relief for everyone not to have to trek all the way out there any more,” said a spokesman.
Also running from Jan. 26 to 28 will be Kingly Kids Berlin, a new children’s fashion fair aimed toward the market in Central and Eastern Europe. The show should host around 100 exhibitors and has sent invitations out to some 1,500 buyers. Originally scheduled to take place near Bread & Butter in Spandau, the fair’s organizers are looking for a new location. “The cancellation of Bread & Butter means that we are completely revamping our strategy,” said Boris Knoblich, spokesman for Kingly Kids. “It’s a big chance for us, and we are now looking at expanding more quickly than we originally thought.”
But it’s not all expansion in Berlin. B-in-Berlin, the midmarket men’s wear fair, has disappeared without a trace, and the moderate women’s wear show 5th Floor has been canceled until further notice.
Elsewhere in Germany, Bread & Butter’s move away from Berlin also is making waves. “This confirms Düsseldorf’s status as the capital for Germany’s fashion business,” said Frank Hartmann, chief executive officer of the Igedo company, which organizes the massive Düsseldorf moderate women’s wear show CPD. Before the announcement, Igedo already had started expanding into the younger segment with Style & Signatures, an area dedicated to progressive labels. Now, Hartmann said, Igedo is looking to take in more jeans and streetwear brands. “We are building up our streetwear platform, and our arms are wide open.”
Igedo’s organizers are focusing on fine-tuning the four-fairs-in-one concept. Launched this year, it brought CPD, the men’s wear show HMD, the intimate apparel fair Body Look and the sourcing event Global Fashion under one roof. Although visitor numbers at CPD were down in July, Hartmann said he is satisfied with how the fair is developing. “The last two events show that we are going in the right direction,” he said.
The next event, which takes place Feb. 3 to 6, will introduce a new exclusive area, The Room, which will allow labels with separate showrooms to host more modest stands. “This means big names, which have off-site showrooms, can still be represented at CPD at low cost, but without a loss of image,” said Hartmann.
Next up in Germany is the sportswear show Ispo, running Feb. 4 to 7 in Munich. The 35-year-old show is being pepped up by new management at Ispovision, an event that focuses on fashion inspired by sports. According to Sevil Ozlük, who took over as director of Ispovision this year, the barrier between fashionable sportswear and sports-inspired fashion has almost entirely disappeared. “To reflect this, I am completely overhauling how the fair is organized to bring back the flair,” she said. Exhibitors now will be positioned thematically rather than by sport. “It is likely that someone who plays basketball will also be interested in skateboarding and will listen to hip-hop,” she said, adding that thematically organized areas will reflect these tastes and interests through music and decor.
At the high end of the market, Munich Fashion Fair WoMen, is going from strength to strength. After a modest opening with 120 exhibitors at the beginning of 2005, 495 labels showed this August. Managing director George von Berger, who predicts that the show soon will be host to 800 brands, also is looking to welcome former Bread & Butter brands such as 1921, Block 60 and Blue Cult.
In textiles, the pre-collections will be shown in Munich at Fabric Start Feb. 7 to 9, while the innovative fabric fair Avantex, held every two years in Frankfurt, is scheduled for June 12 to 14. The fair is looking to build on the success of the last event in 2005, when Avantex and the technical fabrics show Techtextile were held together. The organizers predict around 7,000 visitors, and between 50 and 60 lectures on the latest developments in textiles will be given by industry professionals. “We want to consolidate and stabilize the new concept,” said Avantex director Michael Jänecke. “The fair is not just about doing business, but also about sharing knowledge.”