Entrance to Bread and Butter in Berlin, July 7th, 2010.
Bread and Butter Photos Courtesy of Bread and Butter Trade Show
Scheduled around the same timeframe as the 7th edition of the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Berlin, which saw it’s share of excellent new designs including newbies to this fashion week such as Mavi, Calvin Klein, and Blaak, Bread & Butter the fashion trade show, again showcased a winning platform of brands and business at the Berlin-Tempelhof, positioning itself as the kingpin of Street and Upper Urbanwear fashion.
From July 7-9, Bread & Butter’s timeframe traditionally puts it at the beginning of a string of upcoming fashion trade shows, including Agenda, Capsule, MAGIC, S.L.A.T.E., Project, Pool, ASR and Class at ASR (see Label Networks’ Events You Should Know for more). Branded this season as the “Premier League” it was a tightly edited mix of the top 650 brands in various categories of street, denim, urban, and upper-urban brands all there featuring their Spring/Summer 2011 collections. Some of the brands included G-Star, which also announced its new collaboration and ad campaign featuring Liv Tyler, and their popular fashion runway show, adidas Originals, Adriano Goldschmied, Francois Girbaud, Levi Strauss, Puma, Le Coq Sportif, Lee, Ben Sherman, among others.
Denim Base section of Bread and Butter is its bread and butter at the show.
To kick it off, since it was the championship game of the World Cup, they hosted a giant football party on the open airfield for some 9,000 guests to watch Spain vs. Germany, creating a sporting atmosphere for exhibitors, attendees, and media and providing a fun and exciting “stadium” event which we’re not sure any other fashion trade show has done before. Other key events included a concert by Janelle Monae and Mayer Hawthorne & The Country.
“‘It’s the best of the best of the best. Here, you can see how the business will look in the future,” said Diesel’s Renzo Rosso. “The quality was simply right, we had extremely good conversations, everyone agrees.”
“Someone who has the industry’s who is who at his show can be more than satisfied, ” said Uwe Boser from Pepe. Alessandro Menegon from Take Two observed, “The customers don’t just stop by for a quick look. They stay at the collections for a long time.” Many stands also counted larger numbers. For example adidas Originals and Lee, reported an increase visitor numbers of 40%.
Janelle Monae performing at Bread and Butter.
This is the 3rd event for Bread & Butter back on home-turf in Berlin, and in many ways, now attracts a more international audience including retailers from Dubai, Japan, Australia, Malta, Russia, and many other countries. It’s also becoming the location for American brands seeking relationships with European and Eastern European buyers.
For streetwear and action sports-inspired brands, Bread & Butter made a concentrated effort to tap into the lifestyle and culture of this genre in their Sport & Street section, featuring a new slogan, “You are the reason why we are different” with an entirely separate feel, look, and location to optimize a new layout in an attempt to balance larger brands with small, up-and-coming brands commonly found in this area. It also included the B&B Boarding House featuring creative and artistic exhibitions that tapped into the street art, or outside art culture associated with many brands.
L.O.C.K. area was for heritage brands and hugely popular at Bread and Butter.
Other areas we find fascinating is of course the bread and butter of Bread & Butter, the Denim base section with it’s plethora of a who’s who in denim. However the L.O.C.K. area (label of common kin) tends to also get a lot of hype for it’s collection of brands related to the whole heritage trend. This is where you’ll find many of the workwear-brands-turned-designer featuring aspects of their long histories and evolution of styles.
Other key styles from Bread & Butter, which can also be picked-up by the leading-edge crowd it attracts, include more grunge-like washes and fades, boyfriend-jean silhouettes, chinos but in more colors other than khaki, nautical-looking jackets, military inspirations, and dare we say it, the possible return of parachute pants circa Bobbie Brown era.
Sport and Street section featured many new aspects including a different design and lay-out.
One of the big announcements at Bread & Butter was that it will continue with its Kids Camp by expanding and creating an entirely new Kids show featuring fashion for little fashionistas starting in 2012.
Bread & Butter’s upcoming theme for winter is Absolute, to be hosted January 19-21, 2011, with their summer show July 6-8, 2011.
The new theme and logo, Absolute, for the upcoming Winter show for Bread and Butter, January 19-21, 2011.
More images from Bread and Butter Berlin:
The Wrangler booth at Bread and Butter is always unique and well planned. This really says a lot of things about the heritage of this workwear brand and it%uFFFDs new status as designer denim.
Karl-Heinz Muller, the Managing Director of Bread and Butter, is the man behind the business of fashion. He also has an interesting store called 14 oz.-Berlin which features some exceptional streetwear and upper urban brands. The store also produces one-of-a-kind14 oz Booklets that tell the history of key brands at it%uFFFDs store. Their Volume 1 Booklet featured Ten C summer collection by duo Paul Harvey and Alessandro Pungetti and their Volume 2 booklet featured the American brand Filson Bags. 14 oz. store won Store of the Year in 2009 by the German Retail Organization.
Kids Camp at Bread & Butter was a huge hit. They will be launching a stand-alone Kids show starting in 2012.
Bright Trade Show for Streetwear, Sneakers, and Skateboarding
Bright made a good decision when it decided to move their show from Frankfurt to Berlin to coincide smack at the same time as Bread & Butter (actually, one day off, from July 8-10). Similar to the strategy Agenda did with launching during ASR back in the day, the move has caused some waves, especially among action sports brands that now see that they have a choice when it comes to trade shows in Europe.
As if to emphasize its underground status, Bright hosted the show in the Stasi, the former DDR’s secret police headquarters, in the Lichtenberg area, which sort of freaked-out some American brands, but there you have it.
Lakai shoe Spike Jonze at Bright.
Photos for Bright courtesy of Bright Trade Show.
According to the CEO of Bright, Marco Aslim, the move to Berlin was smart as it proved to attract more international brands, totaling up to 300 exhibitors. In addition, Bright brought with it many activities such as skateboarding contests and exhibitions, including the massive Tony Hawk and friends tours by Quiksilver featuring music by N.E.R.D. on top of their giant ramp.
Other events included the Nike SB Team demo with P-Rod, Eric Koston, Omar Salazar, and others, a Best Trick contest hosted by Element, and the Radio Rat Race%u2014 featuring teams of 3 skaters and a filmmaker and a series of skating 6 unique skate spots in Berlin, ending is a huge bbq and cash for tricks and footage, hosted by Relentless Energy Drink, Havoc Distribution, and Vans Off the Wall.
Bright plans on being back in Berlin this winter. Dates TBD, but they will probably be around the same time as Bread & Butter.
Fixie scene at Bright was a popular part of the street and sports culture.
Freaks of Nature art exhibition at Bright featured the evolution of skateboarding and skate-inspired apparel.
