Hotel Concorde Berlin Blog

The Premium and Berlin’s Blossoming Fashion Scene

The weekend may be fast approaching, but the first Berlin Fashion Week of 2013 is still going strong. The fashion extravaganza officially ends on Sunday, so there’s still plenty of time to get in on the action;  Have a read of my Berlin Fashion Week for All post from earlier this week to find out how. You can read all about my Fashion Week experiences – the parties, the shows, the royal visits(!) – next week, but first I’d like to tell you a little bit about the history of Berlin’s fashion scene, and introduce you to its fairy godmother, the Premium International Fashion Trade Show, who are celebrating their 10th anniversary this year.

The Premium takes place twice a year at STATION-Berlin in Kreuzberg, and is the brainchild of Anita Tillmann and Norbert Tillmann. Last night, the Premium team and friends celebrated both the end of another successful fair, as well as their 10-year anniversary, in the UBahn station below Potsdamer Platz; the place where it all began for them.

Back then, in 2003, Berlin’s fashion scene was in need of structure and vision: the city, renowned for its creativity, is also famed for its disorganisation. The airport fiasco is just one example. If Berlin was to be taken seriously as an international fashion metropolis, it would have to get organised, start marketing itself more effectively and show that it could be professional. The Premium was not only the first fair to unite the various segments – womenswear, menswear, denim, shoes – under one roof, there was also a strong emphasis on curation, on “quality over quantity”. The aim was to take the hard work out of it for international buyers and fashion insiders visiting Berlin.

The Premium has been a run(a)way success: there were 70 exhibitors, and 3500 visitors at the first fair back in 2003. At the last Premium fair in July 2012, more than 60,000 visitors came to discover 1,400 new collections. Anita Tillmann and Norbert Tillmann were also instrumental in persuading IMG to stage the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Berlin, which has been go strong for the last six years. The Premium has helped establish Berlin as a fashion capital, without them, many other events and fairs may never have chosen the city as a platform to exhibit and network. Take a look at my impressions from the recent Premium below…

There were plenty of Berlin brands, such as Zeha Berlin…

…Michalsky…

…Liebig and Mongrels in Common – our friends from the most recent Vogue Fashion’s Night Out at the Hotel Concorde Berlin.

…or Witty Knitters, whose latest collection I couldn’t take my eyes off. After I got chatting to the team I found out that they are a German brand who have just opened up their first store in Berlin – round the corner from the hotel at Kurfürstendamm 175/176! I fear they may be a little out of my price range but there’s no harm in looking…

There were also plenty of international designers who caught my eye…

The Hotel Concorde Berlin is proud partner of the Premium – here’s to another 10 years!