Status: 03/16/2022 08:47 a.m
This year, Berlin Fashion Week is making a special effort to focus on sustainability and innovation. Nevertheless, there is reason for criticism of the fashion industry – especially when it comes to water.
The catwalk at Kraftwerk Berlin opened with designs from the sustainable collection by Finnish designer Sofia Ilmonen. Over the course of the week, events, conferences, shows and workshops are planned, now again in person and digitally. These bear names such as “Wasteless Future Exhibition”, “Carpe Diem – Sustainable Couture” or “The Berlin Fashion Summit: Global Perspective” and indicate a sustainable focus.
“Mix suitable for Berlin”
The Fashion Week program is a good mixture that goes very well with Berlin, said the independent Berlin Senator for Economic Affairs, Stephan Schwarz. Sustainability is relevant for the fashion industry, since a lot of water, energy and oil is used in the manufacture of clothing. Buying clothing made from higher quality or renewable raw materials relieves the resource balance.
Schwarz further emphasized: “In Berlin we already have the highest number of shops with sustainable clothing in Europe and a very high density of fashion labels and service providers in the field of sustainability.” Parts of the Fashion Week were supported by the Senate Department for Economics, Energy and Business with over 750,000 euros.
Fashion industry as a trendsetter?
Co-creators of the Fashion Week see this as a place of kick-off with a signal effect. The designer and sustainability expert Max Gilgenmann has been part of the Berlin fashion and sustainability scene for several years and founded the Studio MM04, a creative and sustainable strategy consultancy that is involved in the Fashion Week. Gilgenmann believes in fashion as a trendsetter that has an effect on the entire lifestyle area, on which many fields depend.
“Fashion has a very strong potential for social and cultural change,” says Gilgenmann. The Fashion Week program is a balancing act between raising a finger and taking the participants with you. Fashion can do this. But consumer culture needs to change fundamentally, he adds.
Immense water consumption during production
Some also see a danger of greenwashing in the sustainability efforts of Fashion Week and are committed to drawing more attention to the problems of the fashion industry during the event.
The Berlin NGO Drip by Drip is committed to reducing water consumption in fashion production and wants to put water consumption on the agenda. This is not the case at the moment, because water, as an element that needs to be protected, is not easily accessible and the problem of water pollution and water shortages is therefore too unknown, warns NGO co-founder Amira Jehia.
The water consumption for the production of clothing is immense, and environmental protection is often left out. In production countries like Bangladesh, this leads to groundwater pollution. Even if there are already tried-and-tested solutions for making clothing more environmentally friendly and water-saving, Jehia says that many labels are not interested in such a change.
No great interest from the trade fair visitors
She is skeptical about the fashion week’s sustainability efforts. For example, Drip by Drip organized a Fashion Week talk with Orsola de Castro from the “Fashion Revolution” movement and the Dutch expert for sustainable fashion, Marieke Eyskoot, to present ways of reducing the water footprint in fashion. Water as a material and its problematic use in the fashion industry were the focus of the event, which was unfortunately not well attended.
Jehia sees the reason for this – apart from the pandemic – in the fact that the critical examination of fashion labels with their production methods and water consumption is less sexy and glittering. Other, more typical Fashion Week events are more popular. “The fact that this decision is made shows that there is not really much interest in change.”