There were big plans that had been forged for the first Frankfurt Fashion Week in the summer of 2021. In addition to the actual trade fair events, there were to be events throughout the city, through which the Zeil, for example, was to become a catwalk. These plans were still being fleshed out at the beginning of the year in the hope that the pandemic would have calmed down by then. In fact, there are currently signs of a positive trend - but this is not enough to be able to plan a major event like Frankfurt Fashion Week for the beginning of July. And so, as of today, it is clear: Frankfurt Fashion Week will only take place digitally from 5 to 9 July 2021. The initiators, Messe Frankfurt and the Premium Group, have developed the FFW STUDIO for this purpose. Presence events such as the tradeshows Premium, Seek, Neonyt and The Ground as well as the runway presentations will be postponed to January 19-21, 2022.
Because the tradeshows and presentations are primarily built on the physical presence of an international (trade) audience, scheduling these events would simply be too risky for many reasons, but especially for financial reasons. Criteria such as ongoing restrictions on travel and extensive quarantine regulations as well as internal company aspects such as travel restrictions or short-time working regulations, which currently make it impossible for stakeholders to commit to physical participation in Frankfurt Fashion Week at the beginning of July 2021, also make a safe implementation impossible.
Setting digital impulses for the transformation of the fashion industry
"Now it's time to look ahead. We set out to make Frankfurt Fashion Week and its ecosystem the pacemaker for the fashion and textile industry and to put relevant future topics on the industry's agenda. We are sticking to this claim. For example, the new Frankfurt Fashion SDG Summit presented by the Conscious Fashion Campaign in cooperation with the United Nations Office for Partnerships and the conference "The New European Bauhaus - Workshop of the Future", inspired by the European Union's "New European Bauhaus" initiative and organised by the Fashion Council Germany in cooperation with Frankfurt Fashion Week, promise a top-class digital impact. Our intention to completely reinterpret a Fashion Week in Frankfurt and to set an internationally impacting impulse on how to transform the future of the fashion industry will thus be fulfilled even under these challenging circumstances!"It breaks my heart to cancel our trade shows, conferences and events, as well as the planned collection presentations and shows, for the third time in a row. Let's not kid ourselves, this is dramatic for the fashion industry. We have no choice but to face the facts, draw the consequences and plan the physical elements of a Frankfurt Fashion Week - which we all look forward to so much - for January 2022. For July, we will now join all forces to digitally live up to our responsibility to the industry, even without a personal get-together: In the FFW STUDIO we will offer inspiration, but above all present the topics on sustainability and digitisation and discuss them at the highest level in appropriate formats. It is about making a kind of pre-season of our vision of a new Frankfurt Fashion Week, despite Corona, a reality", says Anita Tillmann, Managing Director of the Premium Group. "Now more than ever!"
www.frankfurt.fashion becomes FFW STUDIO
The FFW STUDIO is created on the website www.frankfurt.fashion and will be the central contact point for all textile and fashion professionals, fashion people and interested parties. A professionally curated live stream will create a holistic user experience during Frankfurt Fashion Week, with four channels - Trade Show, Conference, Experience and Arts & Entertainment - representing the four pillars of the Frankfurt Fashion Week ecosystem and always highlighting the leitmotifs of sustainability and digitisation. Following the live broadcast, the content will be available to all stakeholders in the form of a video-on-demand series for the interim season. This will create a concentrated and high-quality essence of the future-oriented thematic fields of Frankfurt Fashion Week.
The programme is state-of-the-art and will be developed together with partners from politics, trade, industry and media: In exclusive Future Talks of international leading media, future-relevant issues are discussed with leading decision-makers of the industry. Other programme highlights include deep dives and insights into the two flagship conferences of the new Frankfurt Fashion Week, the Frankfurt Fashion SDG Summit and the conference "The New European Bauhaus - Workshop of the Future", both of which will be held for the first time as part of Frankfurt Fashion Week. The programme details will be announced soon.
