Germany plays an important role in the fashion industry, along with France, the United Kingdom, the United States, Italy, Spain, and Japan. German fashion is known for unconventional young designers and manufacturers of sports and outdoor clothing, ready-to-wear and custom-made creations. [1]
Berlin, the country's capital city, is also a fashion capital of the world and the home of Berlin Fashion Week, the country's main event where young and creative German fashion designers showcase unique creations. [2] Other important cities to the German fashion landscape are Munich, [3] Hamburg and Cologne. [4] Smaller places such as Herford, Metzingen, Herzogenaurach, Schorndorf, Chemnitz, Albstadt and Detmold [5] are also important design and production hubs of the German fashion industry.
Berlin Fashion Week (Berliner Modewoche) is a fashion week held twice annually (in January and July) in Berlin, Germany. Since its establishment in July 2007 it has gained great international attention for its many creative young designers who are flourishing in the fashion capital of Berlin. [6] Since July 2011, the event has taken place part in front of the Brandenburg Gate.
Mercedes-Benz is the main sponsor of the fashion week.
Zalando SE is a publicly traded German online retailer of shoes, fashion and beauty active across Europe, headquartered in Berlin. The company was founded in 2008 by David Schneider and Robert Gentz and has more than 51 million active users in 25 European markets.
Zalando is active in a variety of business fields – from multi-brand online shopping (including their own brands), the shopping club Lounge by Zalando, outlets in 12 German cities, as well as logistics and marketing offers for retailers. In 2022, Zalando generated revenue of 10.3 billion Euro, with roughly 16,000 employees.
Düsseldorf has been the fashion capital of Germany for decades; it is also a major cultural center for the art scene. Berlin, Germany's 'fashion capital' until 1945, lost its position because of its special location within the Soviet occupation zone. After the monetary reform of June 20, 1948, fashionable clothes trends gained importance. Igedo organised fashion shows staged in Düsseldorf starting in March 1949. [7] There are a number of schools dedicated to fashion design in Düsseldorf, among them Akademie Mode & Design (de), Design Department, and Mode Design College. [8]
The Königsallee is an urban boulevard and is noted for both the landscaped canal that runs along its center, as well as for the fashion showrooms and luxury retail stores located along its sides.
Nicknamed Kö (German pronunciation: [køː] ) by locals, the Königsallee is one of Germany's busiest upscale shopping streets. [9]
In around 1,300 companies with more than 130,000 employees, a revenue of 28 billion Euro is generated by the German textile industry. Almost 44 percent of the products are exported. The textile branch thus is the second largest producer of consumer goods in Germany, after food production. [10] [11]
Adidas AG (German pronunciation: [ˈʔadiˌdas] ; stylized in all lowercase since 1949) [12] is a German athletic apparel and footwear corporation headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, Germany. It is the largest sportswear manufacturer in Europe, and the second largest in the world, after Nike. [13] [14] It is the holding company for the Adidas Group, which also owns an 8.33% stake of the football club Bayern Munich, [15] and Runtastic, an Austrian fitness technology company. Adidas's revenue for 2018 was listed at €21.915 billion. [16]
The company was started by Adolf Dassler in his mother's house. He was joined by his elder brother Rudolf in 1924 under the name Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik ("Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory"). Dassler assisted in the development of spiked running shoes (spikes) for multiple athletic events. To enhance the quality of spiked athletic footwear, he transitioned from a previous model of heavy metal spikes to utilising canvas and rubber. Dassler persuaded U.S. sprinter Jesse Owens to use his handmade spikes at the 1936 Summer Olympics. In 1949, following a breakdown in the relationship between the brothers, Adolf created Adidas and Rudolf established Puma, which became Adidas's business rival. [17]
The three stripes are Adidas's identity mark, having been used on the company's clothing and shoe designs as a marketing aid. The branding, which Adidas bought in 1952 from Finnish sports company Karhu Sports for the equivalent of €1,600 and two bottles of whiskey, [18] [19] became so successful that Dassler described Adidas as "The three stripes company". [18] [19]Other famous fashion brands include MCM, Hugo Boss, Escada, JOOP!, Bruno Banani, Jil Sander, Triumph, Schiesser, Closed, Reusch, Valisere, Jack Wolfskin, Ulla Popken, Buffalo, Rohde, Marc O'Polo, Tom Tailor, s.Oliver, Esprit, Wunderkind, Seidensticker, Windsor., Jaques Britt, Naketano.
There are also various agencies hosting multiple German brands and designers at once, such as zLabels Berlin. [22] Also the big department stores like Kaufhof and Karstadt, retail chains like Peek & Cloppenburg, Ulla Popken and NewYorker or mail order and online shops like Otto and Zalando have various in-house fashion brands.
The Bread & Butter in Berlin [23] is a leading trade fair for street fashion and ready-to-wear trends, twice annually during Berlin Fashion Week. [2] [24] [25] The Igedo fair Collection Première Düsseldorf in Düsseldorf (CPD) was the world's dominating fashion fair for years. [26]
Renowned fashion designers from Germany are e.g. Karl Lagerfeld, Hugo Boss, Wolfgang Joop, Jil Sander, Michael Michalsky, Etienne Aigner, Tomas Maier, Robert Geller, Philipp Plein, Rudolph Moshammer, Torsten Amft, Uli Herzner, Gabriele Strehle, Christoph Tisch, Marc Engelhard, [27] Willy Bogner, Rudolf and Adi Dassler. [28]
Important fashion media of Germany include the German Vogue, Elle, InStyle, Cosmopolitan, Vanity Fair, Jolie, Glamour, Grazia, Life&Style and Sleek magazines. The German fashion magazine with the longest continued tradition is Burda Style, that was first published by Aenne Burda in 1950, who also established the major Bauer Media Group. Also various general women magazines and tabloids like Joy, Brigitte, Petra, Gala and Bunte are influential in regards to fashion perception.
As for television, FashionTV can be received via cable or satellite. Various casting shows reach a large audience in Germany, including Germany's Next Topmodel by Heidi Klum. Also on ProSieben, the series Fashion Hero starring Claudia Schiffer was looking for fashion design talents. The Shopping Queen format at VOX stars designer Guido Maria Kretschmer, it provides five contestants with 500 EUR to buy them a fashion outfit and styling in four hours, to compete with each other.
Important modeling agency locations in Germany are Berlin (izaio, CORE Artist Management, Seeds Models, Viva Models, OneEins), Munich ( Louisa Models, Most Wanted Models, Munich Models, Nova Models, Talents München, Vivienne Models) and Hamburg ( CORE Artist Management, MGM Models, iconic management, m 4 models, Mega Models, Model Management, Modelwerk, Most Wanted Models, Place Models, PMA Models). Also agencies in Vienna and Zurich host models based in Germany, as well as major global agencies like IMG Models, DNA, Elite, Models 1 and NEXT. [29]
There is a range of fashion models from Germany that made it to international fame, such as Claudia Schiffer, Heidi Klum, Diane Kruger, Eva Padberg, Toni Garrn, Julia Stegner, Tatjana Patitz, Anna Ewers, Manon von Gerkan, Birte Glang, Nico, Uschi Obermaier, Carola Remer, Franziska Knuppe, Vanessa Hegelmaier, Lena Gercke, Sara Nuru, Barbara Meier, Nadja Auermann, Claudia Ciesla, Aslı Bayram, Shermine Shahrivar, Evelyn Sharma, Victoria Jancke, Marten Laciny, Nico Schwanz and Lars Burmeister. [30]
Fashion education in Germany is centered on art schools, universities and the major fashion manufacturers. [31]
Academic institutions that offer courses in fashion design include:
Adidas AG is a German athletic apparel and footwear corporation headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, Germany. It is the largest sportswear manufacturer in Europe, and the second largest in the world, after Nike. It is the holding company for the Adidas Group, which also owns an 8.33% stake of the football club Bayern Munich, and Runtastic, an Austrian fitness technology company. Adidas's revenue for 2018 was listed at €21.915 billion.
Sneakers (US) or trainers (UK), also known by a wide variety of other names, are shoes primarily designed for sports or other forms of physical exercise but which are also widely used for everyday casual wear.
Horst Dassler was a German businessman. The son of Adolf "Adi" Dassler, founder of Adidas. Horst Dassler founded Arena, a swimwear company, and became chairman of Adidas, and at the time of his death it was the world's largest sporting goods manufacturer with affiliates in 40 nations. Horst himself was known as the father of sports sponsorship as a result of his separate business of managing rights for the world governing bodies of football and the Olympics.
Puma SE is a German multinational corporation who design and manufacture athletic and casual footwear, apparel, and accessories, headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, Germany. Puma is the third largest sportswear manufacturer in the world. The company was founded in 1948 by Rudolf Dassler (1898–1974). In 1924, Rudolf and his brother Adolf "Adi" Dassler had jointly formed the company Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik. The relationship between the two brothers deteriorated until they agreed to split in 1948, forming two separate entities, Adidas and Puma. Following the split, Rudolf originally registered the newly established company as Ruda, but later changed the name to Puma. Puma's earliest logo consisted of a square and beast jumping through a D, which was registered, along with the company's name, in 1948. Puma's shoe and clothing designs feature the Puma logo and the distinctive "Formstrip" which was introduced in 1958.
Herzogenaurach is a town in the district of Erlangen-Höchstadt, in Bavaria, Germany. It is home to two major international sporting goods companies, Adidas and Puma, and Schaeffler Group, a car parts manufacturer.
Football boots, also known as cleats or soccer shoes in North American English, are a type of shoe worn when playing association football (soccer), most of its variations, and some games that are played on the same surface. Those designed for grass pitches have studs on the outsole to aid grip. Modern "boots" are no longer truly traditional boots in that they do not cover the ankle — like most other types of athletic footwear, their basic design and appearance have converged with that of sneakers since the 1960s.
Adolf "Adi" Dassler was a German cobbler, inventor, member of the Nazi party and businessman who founded the German sportswear company Adidas. He was also the younger brother of Rudolf Dassler, founder of Puma. Dassler was an innovator in athletic shoe design and one of the early promoters who obtained endorsements from athletes to drive sales of his products. As a result of his concepts, Adi Dassler built the largest manufacturer of sportswear and equipment. At the time of his death, Adidas had 17 factories and annual sales of one billion marks.
Rudolf "Rudi" Dassler was a German cobbler, inventor, member of the Nazi Party, businessman and founder of sportswear company Puma.
The ASV Herzogenaurach is a German association football club from Herzogenaurach, a suburb of the city of Nuremberg, Bavaria.
1. FC Herzogenaurach is a German association football club from Herzogenaurach, a suburb of the city of Nuremberg, Bavaria.
Karhu is a Dutch sports equipment company based on an originally Finnish brand, focused on running. Originally established as "Oy Urheilutarpeita" in 1916, it was renamed "Karhu" four years later. Karhu's line of products includes sneakers, t-shirts and jackets. In past years, Karhu also manufactured skis. In 2008, the company was sold to a group of investors organised under "Karhu Holding B.V.". The investors responsible for operations are Dutch/American businessman Huub Valkenburg and the Arese family from Italy. Karhu Holding B.V. is based in the Netherlands and is run by Emanuele Arese.
The AMD Akademie Mode & Design is the design department of the private Fresenius University of Applied Sciences. With locations in Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Wiesbaden, Munich and Berlin, AMD is thus part of one of the largest private universities of applied sciences in Germany and is based in Idstein together with the Fresenius University of Applied Sciences. Accredited study programs, training and further education programmes in the fields of design, fashion, communication and industry-specific management are part of its educational offer.
Brütting is a German shoe manufacturer, located in Küps, Bavaria. GEKA Sport Limited is a division of Brütting.
Zalando SE is a publicly traded German online retailer which is active across Europe and specializes in shoes, fashion and beauty products. The company was founded in 2008 by David Schneider and Robert Gentz and has more than 51 million active users in 25 European markets.
Bread & Butter was an annual Berlin-based event and a year-round online shopping hub by Zalando.
Armin Dassler was the son of Rudolf Dassler, German founder of the sportswear company Puma and nephew of Adidas founder, Adolf "Adi" Dassler.
The Statue of Adolf Dassler is a life-size sculpture, which was erected in May 2006 at the Adi Dassler stadium in Herzogenaurach. The sculpture portrays the founder of the sporting goods company Adidas, and was created by sculptor Josef Tabachnyk. The statue sits like a spectator on a stand within the stadium, which is located next to the main entrance of the Adidas headquarters in Herzogenaurach. After the sculpture opening in 2006, the sculpture of its founder has often been used as a symbol for the company and its roots in producing sports shoes in the 1920s.
The Dassler brothers feud was a conflict between two brothers and their respective shoe manufacturers, Adolf ("Adi") and Rudolf ("Rudi") Dassler, in the latter half of the 20th century. Their feud led to the creation of Adidas and Puma, two of the biggest shoe manufacturing companies, and started a long-lasting rivalry between the two companies, reflected in rivalries between football clubs and a culture of animosity between Puma and Adidas employees that divided their home town. The most notable event that fuelled the rivalry was the "Pelé Pact", where both agreed not to sign a deal with Pelé for the 1970 World Cup, feeling that a bidding war for the most famous athlete in the world would become too expensive, only for Puma to break the pact and sign him.
Britta Katharina Dassler is a German politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) who served as a member of the Bundestag from the state of Bavaria from 2017 until the 2021.
Anja Gockel is a German fashion designer. Her poetically dreamy and colorful fashion is internationally recognized. Her customers include celebrities such as Queen Silvia of Sweden, Ann-Kathrin Kramer, Barbara Schöneberger, Mina Tander and Marietta Slomka.
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Bread & Butter Berlin(BBB) confirms its position as the leading international trade fair and trademark.
(BBB), the leading international trade event for progressive, contemporary clothing brands