The car company will no longer be the main sponsor of the Berlin Fashion Week. Mercedes still wants to take part with a completely new format.
Manuel Almeida Vergara
Fashion Week in Berlin: event with diminishing appeal. Although this photo from September suggests otherwise. dpa
Not a week old is the news that Mercedes-Benz intends to withdraw as the main sponsor of the German fashion week, meaning that the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Berlin will no longer exist in its previous form. The car company follows up with the next report and thus keeps its promise to provide information about a new fashion commitment in the capital in due course.
“In order to reach target groups and customers in the best possible way, all communication platforms at Mercedes-Benz are continuously and individually checked. This also includes the brand’s commitment to international fashion weeks and events. This is also the case in the German market in the fashion metropolis of Berlin,” said a statement that Mercedes sent exclusively to the Berliner Zeitung on Wednesday last week. And: “We are currently working on a new concept to present the brand’s commitment to fashion on the German market in 2023. We will inform you about this in due course.”
Experimenting with formats
An official press release was then sent out on Monday, stating that from now on there will be a semi-annual event entitled Mercedes-Benz Fashion Moments as part of Berlin Fashion Week; For the upcoming Fashion Week at the beginning of 2023, this means January 18th. In order to be able to use different areas of innovation, design and lifestyle, Mercedes-Benz wants to continue working with the creative agency Nowadays and with various brands to realize its events. The start is made with the established label Marc Cain from the premium fashion sector, and Tempelhof Airport was found as the location for the event on January 18th.
A passage in the press release makes you sit up and take notice: “The future cooperation with various brands will enable the brand with the star to give customers insights into the fascinating world of fashion and lifestyle with inspiring experiences and to respond flexibly to the zeitgeist of fashion”. Whether this is a public event, i.e. “customers” can be translated as “end consumers”, is not clear from the message. A move towards a fashion event that can be visited by the public would be conceivable, however.
Companies have long been experimenting with such formats as counterpoints to closed off specialist events. The online giant Zalando, for example, bought the fashion fair Bread & Butter and very successfully opened it to a wider audience in 2016 and 2017; at times more than 30,000 visitors are said to have come to the lifestyle spectacle. Last year, the premium group hosted its annual fashion festival, The Ground, for the first time, designed specifically to attract a young Gen Z audience.
15 years as title sponsor
It is not yet clear whether Mercedes-Benz is now thinking in a similar direction and wants to invite private fashion enthusiasts in addition to trade visitors. However, an official statement by Jens Kunath, Head of Sales Cars Germany and Member of the Management Board of Mercedes-Benz Cars Germany (MBD), reads as follows: “After 15 years as the title sponsor of the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, we will now be in the fashion Reposition the area in Germany with a more advanced format. The demands of the fashion industry, the needs of the audience and the formats of Berlin Fashion Week are constantly changing.” That certainly doesn’t sound like a classic fashion show lasting 20 minutes, to which only invited guests are allowed to come.
But that too will be back in Berlin in January: in addition to the withdrawal of Mercedes-Benz as the main sponsor giving the title, the rest of the Berlin Fashion Week program was also announced last week. Funded to a large extent by the Berlin Senate Department for Economics, Energy and Public Enterprises and determined by a competition of the Fashion Council Germany (FCG), many different formats will be part of the Fashion Week from January 16th to 21st, 2023; including classic fashion shows, store events and other presentation formats. The trade fairs of the Premium Group will also take place again in the same period.