Berlin Fashion Week has a reputation for being one of the greenest around, with a strong, ongoing commitment to eco and sustainable fashion. In fact, it is often regarded as the major European platform for fairly produced fashions. Each Fashion Week, there are a number of dedicated eco fashion events as part of the program. We look at some of the highlights from this year’s event, which was held from 2-7 July.

1. Showfloor Berlin

Showfloor Berlin has taken place every six months since 2009. This year, it returned to its traditional summer location, KOSMOS BERLIN at Karl-Marx-Alle, a historically preserved cinema in East Berlin. The event itself played host to 16 collections with a range of individually designed shows, with each label bringing its own unique approach to responsible production methods. Interestingly, on 3 July, the showroom runway showcased innovative avant-garde designs from Portugal, as part of a partnership arrangement with the Portuguese Embassy. It proudly presented the well known avant-garde fashion labels Dino Alves, V!tor, and “Os Burgueses” from Lisbon. Some of the big local names which were part of the showcase included ANSOHO, Ellen Eisemann and AUGUST. Showfloor Berlin is particularly unique as it is open to the public and extremely accessible to fashion lovers.

2. GREENShowroom

The GREENShowroom is traditionally a very unconventional trade fair and this time proved to be no different, as it presented the high-end trends for 2014 in quirky and unusual ways. Approaching its 10th season, Berlin’s Adlon Hotel was the backdrop for the event which caters mainly to trade and business professionals. This July, the focus was very much on avant-garde with innovative German labels Aleks Kurkowski, Cocccon and Katharina Kaiser, among the selections. This year, the event also welcomed French label Johanna Riplinger, which is known for turning high-end fabrics into modern business styles. Also debuting at GreenShowroom this year were the three finalists from the Humanity in Fashion Award. To start the show, a Salonshow event was held on 2 July, showing 54 looks from 20 of the participating brands. Some of the trends predicted for next summer include bright, beautiful pops and relaxed knitwear.

3. Ethical Fashion Show

The Ethical Fashion Show is a highlight of Berlin Fashion Week and showcases international labels, which presented spring/summer 2014 collections across innovative street and casual wear. The fashion show itself is complemented by panel discussions and educational seminars to highlight the ethics behind the designs. This year, the focus was firmly on social standards in the manufacturing process and transparency of the supply chain. After a successful start at Berlin Fashion Week in January 2013, the Knowledge Lounge initiative continued this season, which is a seminar series on eco fashion issues. This time around, the Fair Wear Foundation invited people to attend the premiere of its WellMade seminar series, where they threw a spotlight on the clothing industry’s social standards and provided hands on expertise and solutions for improvement of related working conditions. The Ethical Fashion Show Berlin also hosted a Create Green Breakfast with a focus on Innovative Sales Concepts, which featured keynote speakers Orsola de Castro and Filippo Ricci.

Images: Ethical Fashion Show Berlin, dpa, Schroder and Schombs PR , GreenShowroom

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Artistic license might be just the cure for what ails us each fashion season.

With fashion week season slowly melting away the deep winter freeze here in Europe, it is promising to feel a bit of stylistic heat from the recent runway shows in Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, and Stockholm. Autumn/Winter 2013 might be the last thing on our minds as we struggle to channel coral-hued resort ensembles, but looking ahead can be a good thing when so many creative dimensions are at play. The sculptural experimentation seen on the catwalks during January and early February have demonstrated, perhaps, that smaller European design houses know how to take risks with conceptually bold approaches to their collections. Whether through extreme knitwear, origami fold wearables, or cool geometry, the license to explore fashion follies seems hyper-real in combination with a sustainable edge.

One of the things that I like about the smaller European shows that take place before the heavy-hitter line-ups in New York, Paris, London, and Milan is the excitement that comes from supporting local talent in style geist outposts where fashion schools and converts to sustainable style are looking to cure their fashion malaise. Perhaps this is also why some of the recent catwalk presentations can afford to be a bit more theatrical, as designers present their works as part of a storytelling continuum and with textile innovation as a creative selling point.

Designer Isabell de Hillerin’s MOSAIC collection (photo by Amos Fricke)

I was so impressed last January with the public interest in Berlin Fashion Week – anyone could attend the presentations at the Lavera Showroom (RSVP’s required, though). Berlin has demonstrated increased momentum on the green fashion frontier with venues like The GREENshowroom, The Ethical Fashion Show Berlin, as well as this year’s first Slow Fashion Awards. I was smitten yet again with Berlin-based ethical fashion label, Isabell de Hillerin, who sources many of her woven and embroidered textiles in Romania. Isabell’s new MOSAIC collection encourages the wearer to experiment freely in order to find lasting styling solutions and wardrobe combinations. The designer shares, “Playing with balance, this latest collection is inspired by its individual parts that collectively form a mosaic of colors and shapes. Rich and contrasting fabrics fuse with soft shapes to define a new whole. Folkloric handmade Romanian materials combined with clean cuts represent a position between new design and tradition.”

Princess Máxima (center) at The Green Fashion Competition during Amsterdam Fashion Week (photo courtesy of Style.com)

The much-anticipated Green Fashion Competition at Amsterdam Fashion Week generated quite a bit of interest this season, and the finalists definitely demonstrated a range of eco solutions to the three-piece runway presentation. Much of the excitement was centered around the event’s VIP guest, Princess Máxima, who won major points by attending the runway competition at the Westergasfabriek (Amsterdam’s equivalent to Bryant Park). Winners of the event included Amsterdam’s own Studio Jux and NYC’s ethical fashion it-girl, Carrie Parry.

Carrie Parry’s bold eco separates at The Green Fashion Competition in Amsterdam (photo courtesy of the designer)

Designer Carrie Parry takes the prize at The Green Fashion Competition (photo by Patricia Fewer for Hegedus Style)

Mark Smith of Style.com shared the following comment about having a real live princess at the Green Fashion Competition: “Carlien Helmink of Studio JUX, the fair-trade brand that scooped first prize for its chic collection of Nepalese-produced dresses, said, ‘She (Princess Màxima) was so enthusiastic and even told us that she had expected the jury to choose us as winner.’ New Yorker Carrie Parry, who won the Category Two prize for most promising start-up, was also impressed. ‘Having a real princess witness the unveiling of your designs is pretty much a fairy tale, isn’t it?’”

2011’s Green Fashion Competition winner Elsien Gringhuis kicked off the catwalk event (photo by Patricia Fewer for Hegedus Style)

The stuff that fairy tales are made of just might turn the tide of fast fashion. Eileen Moran of Origin 23 feels that cities like Amsterdam are definitely at the forefront of a green fashion revolution. She shared the following with us after completing the circuit in Europe during the past two weeks, “In the merger of the French Federation’s Pret a Porter and Who’s Next Paris, they decided to eliminate the So Ethic section this season. Many of the designers and buyers who have been going to that show for years to seek out what’s interesting in ethical design, moved to MINT at Modefabriek in Amsterdam or to one of the many shows in Berlin, including the GREENShowroom. I really feel that Amsterdam is going to be the next epicenter for eco and ethical fashion. In speaking with buyers, the press, and consultants, most feel that Paris is now more a place to go for fashion week runway shows as well as The Ethical Fashion Show, but Berlin and Amsterdam are steadily taking over as the destinations for trade shows.”

As a counterpoint, I found it interesting that Brazilian-born Priscilla Camargo, the founder of Hegedus Style in Amsterdam,  felt that only three pieces by each designer on the Green Fashion Competition’s runway lacked a bit of depth in terms of presenting a broad cross-section of eco and ethical fashion expressions. Priscilla commented that she was better able to understand the message of designer collections during her visit to MINT at Modefabriek. That said, she was extremely impressed by the designers’ creative efforts and the enthusiasm of the crowd, but looks forward to the event gaining more applicants from abroad for 2013. You can read more of Priscilla’s coverage via her blog.

Green Fashion Competition finalist Zaida Adriana Goveo Balmaseda’s ‘Calafuria’ collection featuring recycled fiber knitwear (photo by Peter Stigter)

As a knitwear enthusiast, I was excited to see the recycled fiber creations of Green Fashion Competition finalist, Zaida Adriana Goveo Balmaseda – who we previously featured in our article Plying A More Fashionable Fiber Frontier. Zaida’s Calafuria collection pays homage to a natural beach reserve in Tuscany that features rock formations called “tafoni.” These other-worldly forms are mimicked by the “weathering” and “cementation” of materials and surfaces in the designer’s organic pieces. Natural fiber and eco-friendly methods used include hand-spun textiles, scraps or pre-consumer waste gathered from designer studio production floors and textile centers as well as organic cotton that was naturally dyed and batted with PET recycled batting. Dead stock wool was also recycled for  the “aveolo” pieces that were stunningly tinted with natural substances and then hand-embroidered.

Dutch designer Iris van Herpen’s wearable art and ‘escapist’ sculptural couture (photo courtesy of The Wild Magazine)

Three-dimensional experimentation and extreme silhouettes were also featured prominently in the Paris Couture Fashion Week presentation of Dutch designer, Iris Van Herpen. Whether wearable art really leads us down a path of statement piece activism or even multi-purpose fashion, is debatable. That said, many of these creations do allow us to explore metaphors and vocabulary related to organicism and mimicry of nature. Both Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Stockholm and Copenhagen Fashion Week  designers seemed to be sharing this message as well – in combination with thawing out fashion lovers on blustery winter nights.

V Avenue Show Repair at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Stockholm

Gaia at Copenhagen Fashion Week

Stine Ladefoged’s extreme knitwear at Copenhagen Fashion Week

Beckmans College of Design at Copenhagen Fashion Week (photo by Kristian Löveborg)

lead image: Winde Rienstra, photo by Peter Stigter

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ExclusiveAn interview backstage at Berlin Fashion Week with Swedish sustainable designer, Mika Modiggård.

The industry’s biggest names converged in Germany’s capital last weekend for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Berlin. Historically, haute centers like New York, Paris, and Milan have defined global garment trends, and these cities’ gridiron prominence make it difficult for emerging designers to make inroads in high-concept couture. Berlin, still gritty over 20 years after the Wall dividing East and West fell, is a different story altogether, and has become a prime platform for new, less-established designers to showcase their collections on an international stage. Swedish-born, Berlin-based fashion designer Mika Modiggård is one such artist.

With astounding industry momentum and only 23 years under her belt, Modiggård is a rising star in Europe; this year, the Swedish Fashion Council ranked her as one of the best up-and-coming designers at Stockholm Fashion Week, and she presented her business and designs to the Crown Princess of Sweden. On Thursday, Modiggård kicked off the catwalk for the Lavera Showfloor in the Kosmos building on Karl-Marx Allee, a monumental socialist boulevard that divides the Mitte and Friedrichshain boroughs of Berlin. She debuted her collection, Rollercoaster, for over 1,000 attendees, featuring sustainably-produced clothing crafted from upcycled vintage-leather and ethically-sourced silks.

Sweeping change has defined 2011 for Modiggård, a theme that manifests in her latest designs: Her life has been a professional and personal roller coaster this year. Post-runway show, EcoSalon sat down backstage with the designer to talk about her career and latest collection.

Mika Modiggård

Modiggård explained that she has been hand-producing and selling clothing since she was 15 years old, when she began experimenting with a sewing machine and creating projects with scrap and secondhand shop garments she deconstructed for auto-didactic purposes: “My education wasn’t formal, but rather one of reverse engineering,” Modiggård said. Growing up in downtown Stockholm, she would frequent used-clothing stores, picking up items that she would disassemble at home, in the process learning how to recreate the shapes and patterns herself. After “one hundred so-so projects,” she received an internship and, summoning all her young-adult courage, asked if she might sell some of her own designs in the shop.

Out of bits of leftover cloth, she stitched together quirky little wallets with a set sales price of only 10 euros. Later that year, she and her father went out for a quick bite to eat at, of all places, a European McDonald’s. At the eatery, a fashionable young woman stood in line in front of Modiggård; to pay for her meal, the young woman pulled money out of one of the billfolds that Modiggård had sewn. At that moment, the designer said, “I knew that I could make it, and that this is what I was going to do.”

Four years ago, Modiggård relocated to Berlin, a cultural destination for indie artists from around the world, who are attracted by the city’s cheap rent for apartments and studio space. She set up shop in the city’s Neukölln borough, a district with one of Berlin’s highest immigrant populations and began fusing her existing eco-fashion sensibility with a harder-edged style. The result? Rollercoaster, a collection that bespeaks the designers current state of mind.

“The past year has been a figurative roller coaster ride. My designs burst into the public eye, garnering me attention I could never have foreseen. The limelight has been overwhelming, but more so an inspiration to push my work into riskier territory.” With the challenge to up the ante creatively, Modiggård retained her loyalty to Scandinavian minimalism but began fusing this design tradition with influences from Berlin’s burgeoning hip-hop scene and also street fashion, which tends to be hard, dark and with little whimsy.

With Modiggård’s gravitation toward experimentation has also come a deepening of her commitment to ethical production of her garments. Her company motto – Fashion, but not at any price – translates her ecologically-minded philosophy toward her craft, one in which environmental and labor conditions are just as important as developing her unique brand of clothing that gives you extreme street cred.

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