Ms. Menkes, you have been in Paris, Dubai, Istanbul, Moscow and New Delhi with the International Herald Tribune’s annual conference – where the who’s who of the fashion business meet. Why did you decide to come to Berlin in 2009?
I think Berlin is an ideal location for a conference on “techno-luxury”. Berlin exudes something that can best be described as “hard and smart”. Berlin isn’t a rich city, but then luxury doesn’t necessarily mean you have to spend lots of money. The conference is more about understanding what modern luxury is and how it can be defined, now and in the future. I’m also thinking of Berlin’s demographic structure: the city is teeming with young people from all over the world, people who are open to technological progress.
How do you perceive fashion and Germany?
I never think about whether a designer is German, Italian or French. Even so, up to now I’ve seen Germany more as a place for men’s fashion, in the same way as it’s the most important location for luxury cars. But this doesn’t have to remain the case in the future.
Do you see fashion as a way for society to express itself?
That’s what fascinates me so much about fashion. You can see this very clearly, especially when you look back in time. Take the wide shoulders of the 1980s, which are now in fashion again. Back then, padded shoulders were an expression of the women’s movement and the fact that women were standing shoulder-to-shoulder with men in the world of work. This clearly shows why fashion is always to some extent a reflection of society.
You were in Berlin in July 2009 for Fashion Week. It was very important for you not only to attend the fashion shows, but also to walk through the streets and see what people were wearing. You said at the time that this was where fashion happened.
Of course. In Berlin almost everything revolves around street style, having an individual style. I find it very exciting and inspiring the way people in Kreuzberg dress, how they combine different items of clothing. I’m certain there are lots of undiscovered designers here who perhaps won’t make it onto the international stage, but are nevertheless doing fantastic work.
What else have you noticed on your forays through Berlin?
I’m now talking about east Berlin; we have to make a clear distinction here. In the east of the city, very few people make what I call a “show of clothes” or deliberately display company logos. It seems to me that young Berliners simply don’t take the big brand names seriously. Not because of the money they cost – they would buy fakes if logos were important to them – no, I think it’s because brand names and designer labels are simply not part of their world.
In 2001, Issey Miyake showed his A-POC collection at the Vitra Design Museum in Berlin. At the time he called Berlin: a “fashionable unfashionable city”. He meant that although the city itself was in fashion, the Berliners didn’t care much about fashion. Has that changed?
I can’t say. Perhaps Miyake was trying to say that you don’t find the typical fashion scene in Berlin like you would in Tokyo, where young women are very trend conscious. Fashion has many forms of expression. In my opinion, anti-fashion is also a kind of fashion.
In Berlin and Germany a lot revolves around sportswear and sports fashion: designs from Adidas, Puma and many collections of young fashion designers clearly reflect the influence of the street and its cultural scenes.
Yes, sure. That’s why Jochen Zeitz from Puma spoke at our conference. Sportswear is extremely important. Berlin is an ideal platform for the Bread & Butter fashion fair for this reason. The enthusiasm with which some people have their photographs taken by fashion blogs shows that they want to set trends themselves. At the same time, however, I don’t believe that professional designers will ever go out of fashion.
