Frankfurt Fashion Week starts with a UN partnership and a full program

Detlef Braun and Anita Tillmann are concerned with nothing less than the future of the fashion industry. On Wednesday, the managing director of Messe Frankfurt and the premium boss presented the first details of the first Frankfurt Fashion Week, which is to take place on July 5th to 9th, 2021 on the Main.

The biggest coup was announced right from the start: The Conscious Fashion Campaign (CFC) becomes the FFW’s presenting partner in cooperation with the United Nations Office for Partnerships (UNOP).

The corresponding Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) should also become a prerequisite for the exhibitors of Neonyt, Seek and Premium by 2023. Here, too, we are apparently very far into the future, while some manufacturers and even more fashion retailers are wondering whether they can still hold out for the next three Corona months.

Focus on sustainability with conferences and awards

The FFW should focus on sustainability. “Our claim is radically forward-looking,” said the head of the Frankfurt trade fair, Detlef Braun, on Wednesday. There is a “consistently sustainable agenda”.

Otherwise, everything that is possible will be presented in event formats: trade fairs, defiles, conferences, get-togethers from the Fashion Council Germany, podiums and receptions. In future, the fair will take place twice a year. The organizers expect around 140,000 visitors.

The central location of the shows will be the Frankfurt Festhalle – as the “counterpart to the Grand Palais in Paris”. French exhibitors and a few others will be happy to take a closer look.

Frankfurt’s Lord Mayor Peter Feldmann (SPD) emphasized that Fashion Week was not limited to the exhibition grounds, but would take place throughout the city. For example in off-locations, museums or other cultural institutions. The entire Main metropolis will become a fashion stage, the city will be “eventized”.

New B2P format “The Ground” and integration of SKTWK

At the same time, the five-day skateboard festival SKTWK starts with art, concerts, contests, photo exhibitions and parties. Anita Tillmann left it open during the digital press conference whether this could mean a real revival of Bright, which was last on hold in Berlin. However, they wanted to “retell” the story of the Brigth with the SKTWK developed by the Fine Lines Marketing agency – after all, everything for the street style and urbanwear fair in 2005 began in Frankfurt’s old police headquarters.

“Frankfurt will be a must for everyone who has sustainability and digitization on their agenda,” said Anita Tillmann, Managing Director of the Premium Group organizer. Seven months in advance, nobody can say which brands and designers will be there in the summer. But in the end everything will depend on the influx and at least moderate order relevance, the organizers know that only too well.

A new addition is the trade fair format “The Ground” with the subtitle “Denim meets Gen Y meets High Street”. The hybrid business-to-the-people (B2P) format is to focus on iconic brands. With the B2P orientation, The Ground addresses the entire value chain – vertically and horizontally, according to the FFW.

The spectrum includes ingredient brands via direct-to-consumer brands as well as conventionally distributed denim, sneaker, lifestyle and performance labels. In order to meet the demands of the younger generation to make sense, the curation of the exhibitors should be linked to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

If you want to stage your brand or business model at The Ground, you have to commit your company to at least five of the 17 SDGs.
A corresponding award is also planned.