JEANSWEAR & CONTEMPORARY FASHION
N° 77 / 3–2019
THE
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ISSUE
IS IT GRAMMABLE? INSTAGRAM’S REAL POWER OVER US
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JA PA N
D EN I M
PANORAMA-BERLIN.COM
BERLIN VIBES 2—4 JULY 2019
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We’ve always placed innovation at the heart of our business. We believe in sustainable innovation to make change. All our garments are produced by certified manufacturing partners using sustainable methods and materials. It’s fundamental. So here’s the deal. Together we can take action and make real change. Let’s share our visions – with respect for people and the environment.
K N OW LED G EC O TTO N APPAREL .C O M
EDITORIAL
N° 77
Are print magazines becoming obsolete? An uncomfortable question for a magazine to have to ask, admittedly, but one that we have to keep bringing up with every new issue. And now, on the 20-year anniversary of J’N’C, this question seems more pertinent than ever. So what better time for a quick #throwback: the first ever issue of J’N’C Magazine was published in 1999 – shortly before the millennium, in the same year that the first ‘Matrix’ film hit cinema screens. Back then, the digital era still seemed a very long way off. (Incidentally, that was also the year I started high school!) Two decades later, in 2019, the world is looking very different; some would even say that the Matrix dystopia is becoming more and more of a reality. And yes, the whole digital aspect is having an increasing influence on the way we live and exposing us to both new opportunities and challenges, which is why we need to constantly adapt and sometimes also put up a fight. But despite the struggle for equilibrium, we don’t want to let our twodecade milestone just pass us by. We want to celebrate it fittingly – along with the changes that it has brought with it. We are proud of what we have achieved so far and can’t wait to see what else the future holds for us. So this time we’re not celebrating our birthday by looking back, but by looking forward. When you spend so many years researching relevant topics, doing countless interviews and continually meeting new people, you inevitably find out that the ones bringing about the change are not our opponents, but potentially our new partners. And that’s why we are dedicating this issue of J’N’C to them: the influencers. After all, they are the ones who are making the marketing world go round these days. Keeping us on our toes, they’re not only forcing us print media to have a rethink, but also the brands. But how? We found out from the two founders of Axel Arigato, Albin Johansson and Max Svärdh, in our interview on page 60 and NA-KD’s Magnus Hörne on page 66. Plus, in our series of influencer interviews from page 48, Lena Lademann, Daniel Fuchs, Lyn Slater, Yasmine M’Barek and Justus Hansen are revealing how they use Instagram to their advantage and what makes a successful cooperation for them. For us as a magazine, a successful cooperation means not shying away from new opportunities but adapting to them and continuing to develop with them. Qualities that the world of fashion represents like no other. So, on that note, here’s to the next 20 years! I hope you enjoy reading this issue!
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Cheryll Mühlen & team @megagalore @jnc_magazine
CONTRIBUTORS
Cynthia Blasberg EDITOR @CYNTHIABLASBERG Old-school with a penchant for pop culture is how Cynthia would describe herself. But here at J’N’C, she’s very much the new kid on the block. Since Cynthia Blasberg created her first magazine at the age of 14 – stapled together in a photocopy shop of course – she has gained a whole raft of experience as an author and editor of everything from fanzines to music magazines and fashion glossies.
Jost Schowe PHOTOGRAPHER @JOSTSCHOWE Jost knew what he wanted to do from an early age, because “since starting school I’ve always really been into photography, especially fashion photography. Arranging and creating new things is always fun for me.” And just what can be achieved with this combination of fun and talent can be seen in this issue: in the cover editorial he and his team expertly shot with model Daniela Dominique.
Aylin Yavuz WORKING STUDENT @AYLINISNOTTHERE In her Instagram profile she describes herself as “the smartest idiot you’ll ever meet”. And since the 24-year-old helped us out here as an intern last year, we can certainly confirm the smart bit. Now she’s back and supporting our editorial team once a week while studying for her degree in fashion journalism and media communications at the AMD Academy of Fashion and Design in Düsseldorf.
www.cg.fashion
CONTENTS 18
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BITS & PIECES
22 INSTAGRAM BRANDS La Bleue, Belize 26 MOST WANTED Comme des Garçons, Emma My Love, New Balance, Axel Arigato, Fendi, Veja 32 COVER FEATURE
DO YOU LIKE ME OR NOT?
36 COVER SHOOT
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BLUE FILTER
48 INFLUENCER INTERVIEWS Lena Lademann, Daniel Fuchs, Lyn Slater, Yasmine C. M’Barek, Justus F. Hansen 58 S TATEMENTS Influencer Marketing 60 BRAND INTERVIEWS Axel Arigato, NA-KD, Inuikii, Candiani, CG-Club of Gents 78
FASHION SHOOT
FEED MY FEED 88 FEATURE Copenhagen Fashion Summit COVER PHOTOGRAPHY: JOST SCHOWE COVER OUTFIT: MAISON MARGIELA, JOSEPH
90 TRADESHOW INTERVIEWS Anita Tillmann – Premium Group, Sebastian Klinder, Joachim Baum gartner, Panos Sofianos – Munich Fabric Start / Bluezone 95
TEXTILE TRENDS
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OPINION PIECE
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PUBLISHER EPP Professional Publishing Group GmbH
PUBLISHING MANAGEMENT Nikola Köster, Kathrin Wimber
Liesegangstraße 17 40215 Düsseldorf Germany
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Pierre D’Aveta
Tel. +49 (0)211 830 30 Fax +49 (0)211 830 32 00
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info@jnc-net.de www.jnc-net.de
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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Cheryll Mühlen c.muehlen@jnc-net.de ART DIRECTION vista www.studiovista.de
EDITORS Cynthia Blasberg, Renée Diehl, Björn Lüdtke, Vanessa Pecherski, Aylin Yavuz COPY EDITOR Paula Hedley PHOTOGRAPHY Markus Bronold, Petra Fischer, Valentin Mühl, Jost Schowe TRANSLATION Galina Green, Paula Hedley Trend Translations
ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Pierre D’Aveta Tel. +49 (0)211 830 31 51 p.daveta@jnc-net.de BANK DETAILS BTV Bank für Tirol und Vorarlberg AG IBAN DE25 7201 2300 0772 8980 00 SWIFT BTVADE61XXX PRICE Germany 15.50 EUR Rest of Europe 17.50 EUR Switzerland 20.00 CHF PRINT Schaffrath Druckmedien, Geldern
DATA PROTECTION NOTICE In the event that delivery is not possible under the address provided, Deutsche Post DHL has the right to pass the correct address on to the publishers. The subscriber can appeal against this guideline. We assume no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, contents, clothing or products. The magazine and all of its contents and images are protected by copyright. The place of business is Düsseldorf and the place of jurisdiction is Munich in all cases.
BITS & PIECES
BACK TO BASICS SAMSOE & SAMSOE For their pre-spring 2020 collection, the label is returning to its roots and bringing us a collection that is classic Danish: functional, minimalist and of a very high quality. The main focus is on authentic and natural aspects, eliminating anything superfluous to gain a renewed consciousness of the way we live. That translates into clean lines, sophisticated silhouettes and an earthy colour palette consisting of khaki, caramel and warm greys. Fabrics such as corduroy, wool twill and crisp cotton imitate structures found in nature and accentuate the ‘back to basics’ approach. And last but by no means least: there are pockets! SAMSOE.COM
DESTINATION UNKNOWN CLOSED Although the inspiration behind the women’s and menswear pieces is very different, the overall vibe of the spring/summer 2020 collection remains the same: for Closed, next summer is all about wandering. Strong modern elements of sportswear and relaxed utility details in luxury fabrics meet new denims and forward-thinking cuts. For women this means shirts in supersoft suede and cargo pants, for men soft cashmere sweaters and washed jerseys. The colour palette ranges from beige, soft pinks, geranium and olive green to navy and indigo. CLOSED.COM
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NO WISH UNFULFILLED
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NEW FABRICS ON THE SCENE
ALBERTO Coming in with a bang! Whether flowing linen pants, casual cotton pieces, rough denim or seersucker – the spring/summer 2020 collection by Alberto leaves nothing to be desired. In addition to thoughtful details and perfect tailoring, elaborate washes, fine surface treatments and a playful take on patterns, colours and fabric qualities make sure there is something for everyone. New cuts and a wide range of materials guarantee a smart look – whenever, wherever. One absolute highlight is the new Revolutional ‘Rob-Z’ pants with mobile phone radiation protection and built-in credit card pocket.
C.P. COMPANY This season, the Italian label is continuing to show its commitment to the latest dyeing techniques and fibres. Renowned for its pioneering work in this field, they are proudly presenting two new fabrics for SS20: Raso C-P and NyBer. The first one is a 5/1 cotton and polyamide sateen weave, which has a cotton outer layer and a nylon (polyamide) reverse. Selectively dyeing only one nylon component, the inside of the garment and the reinforcing webbing means that unique tonal variations are possible. And NyBer is a nylon-based rubbery coating with a dyeable, yet water-resistant membrane in two different weights. And of course these new fabrics also come in the seasonal colours we have meanwhile come to expect of C.P. Company.
ALBERTO-PANTS.COM
CPCOMPANY.COM
STRINGS ATTACHED
BRIGHT PAST, BRIGHTER FUTURE
KOMONO If you thought chains on glasses were only for grandmothers, you’re wrong. Eyewear brand Komono is launching three stylish eyewear cords that perfectly complement their edgy bold styles: Alexis – a colourful skinny chain, Brooks – a chunky neutral chain and Hyper – a minimal cord. Made from high-quality acrylic and finishes with adjustable rubber grips, you can mix and match the different styles and colourways with your own personal look. The best way to ensure you won’t lose or break your beloved shades this summer! KOMONO.COM
CHIEMSEE Old-school graphics and eye-popping neon colours not only take us back to the fashion of the 80s and 90s, but also to the golden age of Chiemsee. For the SS20 season, the German boardsports brand is looking back at its eventful past and arousing a sense of nostalgia in us. With the swimming costume, for example, which recently celebrated its comeback and is enjoying increasing popularity. The equivalent of the swimsuit for ladies is for men the swim shorts, or to be precise: boardshorts. A good selection of colours and styles offers something for everyone and, thanks to the four-way stretch material, also plenty of room to move around in. In a nutshell: retro looks meet modern performance. CHIEMSEE.COM
REJUVENATING AERONAUTICA MILITARE Aeronautica Militare has one thing in mind for the spring/summer 2020 season: rejuvenation! Their priority for this collection is to loosen up the brand’s otherwise rather military-heavy look with some pretty nifty activewear, bright colours and light fabrics. Colour blocking in blue, yellow and red gives the shorts, T-shirts, hoodies and windcheaters a sporty and youthful twist that is sure to turn heads this summer. AERONAUTICAMILITAREOFFICIALSTORE.IT
PEPE JEANS Pepe Jeans is going back to the 1950s and revisiting Eel Pie Island, London’s cult music haven that was renowned for its boundary-pushing music and underground scene. This iconic institution inspired many a famous artist such as David Bowie, so the collection is filled with bohemian opulence and reinterpreted classics. Classic British styles such as the polo shirt are being updated and modernised while knitwear is chunky and oversized for a laidback look. And when floaty feminine pieces meet shorter hem lengths the look is sweet yet sultry. As classic elements of Pepe Jeans and music heritage, leather biker jackets and denim are playing a key role.
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BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
PEPEJEANS.COM
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BITS & PIECES
NOMADIC WARDROBE
100 PERCENT VEGAN KINGS OF INDIGO By spring/summer 2020, KOI will be 100 percent vegan for the first time! And together with Candiani, the Dutch brand is also launching its ‘Re-Gen Programme’, which completely forgoes the use of virgin cotton. Linen, organic cotton and Tencel are the go-to fabrics of the new collection, which, in addition to tie-dye elements, is also focusing on rich and powdery beery, natural and blue tones. By 2025, founder Tony Tonnaer is hoping that the label will only be using recycled fibres or industrially produced fibres from natural raw materials and sustainable washing methods for its jeans. KINGSOFINDIGO.COM
JOSEPH Simple combinations of fresh, nonchalant looks for the modern woman: for spring/summer 2020, Joseph is attaching great importance to essential elements of the modern woman’s wardrobe. And if you know Joseph, you’ll also know that functionality doesn’t have to be sacrificed for style. Minimal cuts are shown to their best advantage on luxurious materials like buttery soft suede, glossy cashmeres and lightweight shearlings, while the wide silhouettes and menswear- inspired classics retain their feminine traits. The collection is underlined by a simple, neutral colour palette – perfect for stylish everyday wear. JOSEPH-FASHION.COM
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HISTORY LESSON
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SCOTCH & SODA AMSTERDAMS BLAUW The pre-spring 2020 collection by Scotch & Soda’s denim and jeans brand Amsterdams Blauw was inspired by art history – Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol to be precise. With his Blue Period, the inimitable Picasso provided inspiration for the design (especially for the denim), while pop art icon Warhol and his Factory culture inspired the overall tenor of the collection. In the Dutch label’s own words: “A wild adventure of passion, colour and culture with the unmistakeable Amsterdams Blauw style.”
KUNSTHAL ROTTERDAM The ‘Street Dreams’ exhibition depicts the styledefining influences of street culture, as well as documenting the roots and development of hip-hop culture. Alongside exhibits by streetwear brands, photos by various artists including Jamel Shabazz and Janette Beckman show just how deeply this pop culture is embedded in our everyday lives. A highlight is the immersive spatial installation that allows pioneers and key figures from the scene to have their say.
SCOTCH-SODA.COM
15.6.– 15.9.2019 KUNSTHAL.NL
HOW HIP-HOP TOOK OVER FASHION
Rajby’s C2C gold certified fabrics set the new benchmark in denim manufacturing by focusing on materials which can be reutilized, recycled using minimal water and energy.
INSTAGRAM BRANDS N° 77
BETWEEN PARIS AND ANDALUSIA LA BLEUE For meanwhile three collections, young fashion brand La Bleue has been recounting tales of sun, sand and the endless blue of the Mediterranean Sea, which also happens to be the brand’s namesake. And the current AW19 collection also draws its inspiration from the Med: ‘Les Tuniques’ consists of four kaftan models, like the ones worn in Andalusia, one of the two places that designer Jordane Devès calls home. That’s also where all the collections are designed, before being produced in a small workshop in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, the second home of the brand’s founder. The long cotton kaftans, in white and black-and-white stripes as well as sand and brown, each have a placket with five handmade ceramic buttons designed by a Spanish artist from Barcelona and come with the matching wide belt around the waist. Devès is a relative newcomer to the fashion business: she originally studied media law before working for a ready-to-wear brand in Paris for two years and then moving on to set up her own fashion brand. It was launched on Instagram, where La Bleue currently has more than 4,000 followers, including noteworthy bloggers such as María Bernad, and so far, the collections have only been sold via their own online shop. However, La Bleue is currently in talks with boutiques in the USA and Japan and they are also planning a men’s collection for the coming year. /rd LABLEUE.COM @LA.BLEUE
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THE TECH CONFERENCE FOR THE FASHION INDUSTRY
4 JULY 2019 FESTSAAL KREUZBERG
BOOK YOUR TICKET NOW! FASHIONTECH.PREMIUM-GROUP.COM
www.fashiontech.berlin
INSTAGRAM BRANDS N° 77
SUMMERTIME BLUES BELIZE With swimwear pieces alongside its feminine dresses and skirts and lightweight trousers, German-British label Belize is holding onto summer. For pre-fall 2019, the fabrics and colours are mainly inspired by North Africa and India. Playing a key role here are silk satin and linen, mixed with some denim in natural colours with highlights in blue, pale orange, azure and rusty red. Also inspired by the two countries, the prints range from floral to lions and elephants. Individually incorporated tortoiseshell elements adorn the high-waist bikinis and retro swimming costumes, which are sure to turn heads at the pool or on the beach. Established in 2016 by Fiona Bansal and Valeska Duetsch, the label is proving very popular on Instagram. With its clean-cut pieces exuding nostalgia and 70s references, it is meanwhile impressing around 5,000 followers, including numerous fashion bloggers and industry insiders. The creations by the two designers, who met when they worked together at Stella McCartney’s studio, are meanwhile available to buy from various boutiques throughout Europe, the USA and Asia, as well as online, such as at MatchesFashion.com. /rd BELIZEOFFICIEL.COM @BELIZE_OFFICIEL
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WWW.SEEKEXHIBITIONS.COM
PHOTOGRAPHY VALENTIN MÜHL PRODUCTION CHERYLL MÜHLEN
MOST WANTED N° 77
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In the bag! The fashionable blue PVC of the @commedesgarcons Shirt Rucksack turns every look into a fashion statement. And it also happens to hold a lot of stuff – 29 litres to be precise. Available from @mrporterlive. #goals #commedesgarcons #itpiece #accessorylove #shopnow
MOST WANTED N° 77
This is the bag we all need! The ethno-look XS shopper made of goat and cow leather by Düsseldorf label @emma.my.love.acc is the perfect accessory for urban bohemians. #labellove #mostwanted #want #emmamylove
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MOST WANTED N° 77
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Keep it cool, keep it simple. The new @newbalance 997 Sport not only has a streamlined profile but is also subtle in terms of colour – apart from, of course, the animal print accent on the heel. #sneakermania #newbalance #blackandwhite #minimalism
MOST WANTED   N° 77
Like cranes in the sky! @axelarigato is dropping its latest style and proving that the keen Scandinavian sense of trends plus Japanese inspiration equals a successful mix. And we love the countermovement to the chunky sneaker. #dropitlikeitshot #axelarigato #mustfollow #weekly #hotrightnow
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MOST WANTED N° 77
Sportswear meets high fashion, made in Italy at its best! The @fendi cooperation with @fila has resulted in, among others, this mini rucksack, which leaves us wallowing in 90s nostalgia despite its modern-day aesthetic. #logomania #fendi #ff #fendiforever
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MOST WANTED   N° 77
New! New! New! @veja is jumping on the sneaker trend bandwagon and showing that sustainability is always one step ahead. Good for the look, good for the planet. #sustainability #shoelove #veja #fashionwithaconscience
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COVER FEATURE
DO YOU LIKE ME OR NOT? —
THE INFLUENCE OF INFLUENTIAL INFLUENCERS Instagram is quite literally in fashion. No other social media platform has such a massive influence on the once predictable world of fashion as the photo app, which has developed from an inspiration platform into one of the most relevant (fashion) marketplaces of the future. Time to take a closer look. TEXT VANESSA PECHERSKI
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6th October 2010 – a day that would drastically shake up the world of fashion like no other: the launch of Instagram. And the concept behind it is actually quite simple! Users post filtered, square-shaped snapshots on a social platform and generate likes and followers in return. Originally intended for artists and photographers to share images, these days, around nine years later, almost 700 million active users are using the app daily – a figure that continues to rise. It is made for a generation yearning for speed, change, individuality and permanent accessibility, whose ways of seeing, informing themselves and, above all, consuming have changed forever. Instagram is meanwhile no longer just about images of supposedly spontaneous moments. The platform is a virtual marketplace of interaction and curated content. A powerful and influential medium that offers the fashion industry in particular a whole host of visual presentation options.
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ACCESS ALL AREAS
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“What the audience couldn’t get from the fashion industry was access,” explains Nicole Barclay, Global Head of Social at Net-a-Porter in the ‘Feed Fashion’ business report, recently published by Instagram to explain the relevance of fashion on the platform. “For the first time in history, Instagram has pro-
vided the viewer with a behind the scenes, real insider access to an industry that was previously closed to them,” she continues. Whether Oscar de la Renta, whose first post in 2013 was critically ridiculed, Proenza Schouler, who gave the world a teaser of her AW15 collection on Instagram instead of waiting for the right moment during Fashion Week, or Gucci, which regularly invites artists to shape its feed aesthetic under the hashtag #GucciGram – the interplay of Instagram and fashion couldn’t be more varied if it tried. Even traditional luxury fashion houses like Chanel and Burberry are increasingly using the platform to make their exclusive brand worlds accessible to a wide audience. The latter went so far as to sell the first products of the new Tisci collection for SS19 on Instagram for a limited 24 hours – a mere half an hour after the first models sashayed down the catwalk in them. And, as expected, pieces from the collection were sold out in a matter of hours! Without a shadow of a doubt, the visual culture surrounding Instagram has helped the presentation forms of fashion gain new relevance and triggered a sustainable shift in perspective among designers: “If they have one influencer in the audience with one million followers, what will that one million followers experience?” suggests Eva Chen, Director of Fashion Partnerships at Instagram.
MISSION INFLUENCE Influencers? For brands and consumers, the most relevant keyword in this discussion. A brilliant example of just how savvy fashion marketing 2.0 can be today is Dior. At the beginning of last year, the luxury brand used Instagram as a main tool for the relaunch of its iconic ‘Saddle Bag’ and, in cooperation with around 100 influencers, generated an in-
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PHOTO IMAXTREE
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COVER FEATURE PHOTOS IMAXTREE
German influencer Caro Daur has amassed over one million followers and achieved global success. Aimee Song meanwhile has more than five million followers and recently launched her own collection ‘Song of Style’.
credible 6.2 million reactions in the form of comments, likes or followers on the platform. And you can only imagine what that meant for the bag’s sales. According to Goldmedia, the market for influencer marketing in Germany will generate a turnover of more than 700 million euros in 2019. Furthermore, it is also predicted that the size of the market in the DACH region will reach the billion mark by 2020. So it’s no longer a matter of whether to work with influencers, but how. While luxury brands are mainly opting for long-term cooperations and traditional campaign marketing, Californian company Fashion Nova, for example, is proving how effective an active exchange with consumers can be: when someone tags the brand, Fashion Nova reacts instantly with a like, comment or repost, thereby turning their followers into influencers themselves – a very smart idea that resulted in the brand reporting a growth of 600 percent in 2017 alone. This is resulting in a generation of consumers who are more interested, informed and discerning than ever before. They want to help shape the content, trends and look and feel of a brand and become an active part of it. And when they want to buy a product or a service, they need to be able to make the purchase right away. A hashtag, a like, a swipe, a tap – that’s all it takes.
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I WANT IT, I’LL GET IT!
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No sooner said than done. After responding to this development with various functions like ‘tap to shop’ (currently around 90 million users monthly), curated Explore pages and the ‘swipe-up function’, the new in-app tool ‘Checkout on Instagram’ is taking the trend of instant gratification to the (economic) extreme. And the principle is simple: consumers can purchase items directly in their feed instead of having to visit a brand’s website – making it the ultimate hotspot for impulse buys, on which Instagram users – as predicted by the analysts – will spend 10 billion dollars.
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According to ‘Feed Fashion’, fashion enthusiasts are checking the app an average of 15 times a day. And it’s obvious that they are looking for reliable sources of information and identification. Thanks to fashion bloggers, brand ambassadors and influencers, it has become a lot simpler for people to adapt fashions and trends to themselves as there are accounts to follow for every style, age group and budget. And if you consider that around 700 million active users meanwhile spend around 25 to 30 minutes scrolling through their feeds daily, it’s easy to see how valuable these attention spans are for companies because they can reach a significant number of people on a daily basis and over a long period of time – usually free of charge. But of course the balance between quality and quantity is also a difficult one to master in the Instagram cosmos.
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WILL LESS BE MORE IN THE FUTURE? How much does a brand reveal? How does it interact with its followers? How loyal, relevant and creative is the influencer promoting the brand? “Over the last few years we have defined a pool of different personalities who we trust and collaborate with. Authenticity, personality and brand fit are very important factors for us,” says Kristina Szasz, Chief Product & Marketing Officer at s.Oliver. While the focus, when it comes to choosing the right influencer strategy, has so far been primarily about the number of followers (the more, the better), there is currently a strong trend towards working with budget-friendlier micro and even nano-influencers (with 1,000 and fewer followers) – especially now that access to the macros (with 1 million followers and more) is becoming increasingly expensive and complicated. In addition to impressively high engagement rates of up to 10 percent (as a comparison, macros have around 2 percent), influencers working on a smaller scale are usually a better fit in terms of specific topics or products and such activities are guaranteed to prove popular with their followers.
After all, even if it’s only very few followers, they are definitely the right ones. And when it’s a choice between masses of followers and actively engaged followers, the formula ‘less is more’ does sound rather promising. In terms of the assessment criteria of influencers, likes and followers are no longer the only driving factor these days. In Canada, Instagram is currently rolling out a test that hides like counts of public accounts – in order to redirect the focus back to the content and to reduce the uniformity of posts, as well as the social pressure – an exciting experiment with an uncertain outcome.
AUTHENTICITY CONTINUES TO SET THE TONE In the quest for attention, in which we are seeing influencers using their strong personal reach for marketing purposes, the rather loaded term ‘authenticity’ is taking on an even
bigger role than ever before: “In the last few months I have been observing the strong trend that users, agencies and also companies are no longer interested in the faked Instagram world,” confirms Kevin Hippler, founder of marketing agency TrendUp Media, which specialises in social media marketing for online shops and e-commerce companies. “The big trend is therefore: Be real. Be you.” Diversity, individuality, integrity, approachability, tolerance and, above all, personality are the unmistakable pillars on which the influencer marketing of the future is based. This is currently being proven by various successful influencer brands such as those of Aimee Song, Karla Deras and Chiara Ferragni, who have succeeded in translating their own specially created digital worlds so successfully for their followers that they have managed to build up solid and competitive businesses with their own brands. And they are by no means inferior to the big fashion brands – on the contrary, in fact. An impressive testimony to the successful collaboration between the sender and recipient, they not only let their followers in through the metaphorical door, but also instantly turn them into fellow creators, which in turn creates a real, lasting bond. And that’s exactly where the whole ‘influence’ factor is about! When the way in which we see, judge, inspire, interact, take photos, design, sell and consume changes in such a drastic way, then it’s more than obvious who the biggest influencer is and will remain: yes, that’s right, Instagram itself.
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Never not online: The most common sight on the streets during Fashion Week? Fashionistas glued to their smartphones, busy keeping their followers up to date.
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BLUE FILTER BLOUSE MAISON MARGIELA VIA YOOX
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PHOTOGRAPHY JOST SCHOWE STYLING NATALIA WITSCHKE
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HAIR & MAKE-UP ANTJE KRAUSE
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MODEL DANIELA DOMINIQUE @M4 MODELS
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DENIM COAT LEVI’S SUNGLASSES ATELIER SWAROVSKI
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SILK DRESS MUGLER VIA YOOX
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DENIM BLOUSON BRIDGE AND TUNNEL DENIM SCARF CLOSED EARRING KLEIDERREICH
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TOP NO. 21 VIA YOOX COAT MYKKE HOFFMANN BOOTS AYEDE EARRING MODEL’S OWN
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TURTLENECK JOSEPH POLO SHIRT FRED PERRY HATS STETSON EARRINGS MODEL’S OWN
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TOP PAUL SMITH SUIT ESSENTIELL ANTWERP BLAZER IVY AND OAK EARRINGS MODEL’S OWN
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BLOUSE & DRESS STINE GOYA BOOTS SCOTCH & SODA
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TOP BALENCIAGA PANTS SONIA RYKIEL TRENCH COAT MAISON MARGIELA
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JEANS LEE BOOTS ESSENTIELL ANTWERP
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BLOUSE ACNE VIA YOOX EARRING KLEIDERREICH
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SHIRT FRISUR DENIM BLAZER & JEANS CLOSED BOOTS AYEDE EARRINGS MODEL’S OWN
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INFLUENCER INTERVIEWS – LENA LADEMANN
LENA LADEMANN
IMPECCABLY REAL Some women simply have it all: their own individual style, natural grace, a knock-out smile, a great sense of trends. And German influencer Lena Lademann is one of them. But because she also has other traits, such as humour and self-irony, it’s difficult to hold all this perfection against her. With her individual mix of high fashion, Scandinavian minimalism, German work ethic and creative aesthetic, the Hamburg local who has 100,000 followers, is currently riding high on the international fashion wave.
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INTERVIEW VANESSA PECHERSKI PHOTOS LENA LADEMANN
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Lena, off the top of your head, what is it that you do differently from everyone else? I think I just stayed true to myself right from the start; to my personal idea of aesthetics, visual imagery and concept development. This meant I have been able to develop my very own DNA and not get lost among the masses of social media content out there.
I also find it scary that content that’s implemented in a pretty basic way gets the most interaction without any claim to creativity or quality. Even if it seems that 90 percent of influencers only drink coffee on Parisian balconies, I know how much professional effort goes on behind the scenes. There’s a reason why this field of work is so successful: it’s because the demand is there.
Looking back, what’s the biggest change that you’ve noticed in the influencer and blogosphere? Regrettably, in terms of offer, content and creativity I’m not really seeing much change, foresight or variety there at all. The mainstream works best and has done from day one and brands often make their decisions based purely on quantity rather than quality. But it is nice to see that the German industry is now also becoming an integral part of the whole communications strategy.
Unfortunately, many brands and PR agencies still have to learn that they’re not working with some soulless advertising platform.
Do you encounter prejudices in your professional life and if so, how do you deal with them? Often people don’t recognise the depth, seriousness, or effort behind the influencer business. Paradoxically, I sometimes share that particular criticism.
How do you interpret the term ‘influencer’? Does it fully describe you? The term has become pretty flexible these days. It basically just describes a person who has an influence on people via their social media channels, which
meanwhile includes models, actors and singers. Of course the term also applies to me, but doesn’t describe and define in detail all the aspects of my work, or what my focus is. Do you select your cooperation partners based on any criteria in particular? Yes, credibility. I turn down a great many cooperations where I know from the outset that we’re not on the same wavelength in terms of how the idea should be implemented. Unfortunately, many brands and PR agencies still have to learn that they’re not working with some soulless advertising platform, but that the influencer’s personality and individuality are what turns the channel into a successful account, whose followers follow them precisely because of that. Instagram currently shows the reach of influencers by displaying like and follower counts on their profiles. What would change, for example, if these were removed? It would mean that the focus was clearly and firmly on the content of the profile and numbers would no longer make up for a lack of quality. Brands would have to focus much more on image-consistent influencers, which, in the long term,
INFLUENCER INTERVIEWS – LENA LADEMANN
would certainly be much better for their authenticity factor. Speed and sensationalism seem to be recurring themes for today’s generation, which often work to their advantage. But not always. What would you say is the recurring theme of your own life? I believe that the incredibly fast pace of our lives means we lose a certain depth. For example, I attach great importance to a healthy work-life balance, and in order to be truly happy I need to distance myself every now and then from my career and the industry I work in, which is why I always plan in enough time at home, away from my mobile phone and with my oldest friends, my family, but also alone. I truly believe that it’s healthy to surround yourself with people and things that offer a good contrast to your career. That’s how you stay grounded, versatile and open. Speaking of friendship, in your dynamic jet-set life it must be good to have your best friend Liberta by your side. How important is it for you to have personal relationships in this career? Yes, that’s right, Liberta and I have such a close bond. We’ve known each other for ten years now and it’s the best thing in the world to be able to do a few projects together in addition to all the trips around the world I do alone. It’s a friend-
More and more influencers are becoming designers and entrepreneurs. Is that something you could imagine doing too? I studied graphic design with a focus on marketing and communication. At some point along the line, everyone wants to keep developing or reinvent themselves. Six months ago, I received a request to design a shoe for a Swedish brand. As I
like to be creative and I was given free rein to decide everything myself (starting with the design, to the image shoot, down to the layout of the newsletter), it was a great opportunity for me to express myself. It will be launched in August. In the future I could really imagine working as an independent creative consultant, offering my services to companies and/or magazines. In my opinion, especially in Germany, the fashion and lifestyle industry is often lacking new ideas, courage, creativity and sophistication. If you had to provide a hashtag for your life, what would it be? #LiveLaughLove
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ship with real mutual depth. In this industry, at least for me, that’s incredibly important, because the other contacts we cultivate are very fast-moving. Who knows what Liberta and I will be doing in the future, professionally or perhaps even together? We’d definitely like to do some more joint projects, perhaps also in the form of videos.
@LENALADEMANN
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INFLUENCER INTERVIEWS – DANIEL FUCHS
DANIEL FUCHS
STAYING GROUNDED As @magicfox, Daniel Fuchs from Düsseldorf has 1.9 million followers on Instagram. That means he’s not only one of the top earners in the industry but also someone who lives the influencer lifestyle that so many dream of. Despite this, the 31-yearold remains firmly grounded and is grateful for one thing in particular: the positive feedback he gets from his followers. INTERVIEW CHERYLL MÜHLEN PHOTO DANIEL FUCHS
What does it feel like to have 1.9 million followers? When the numbers grow incrementally over the past few years, it doesn’t overwhelm you suddenly. The first follower milestone that made me take a deep breath was three and a half years ago when I hit the 100,000 mark. Of course the first million was also a major milestone as that’s when you suddenly realise what’s going on. And what will happen once you’ve hit the two million mark? I’m sure that will be pretty crazy too, but I don’t really think about the numbers. It doesn’t put me under any pressure.
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Who does your loyal followership consist of? I have a large intersection of people who identify with simple things – like sports, fashion or travel. I’m not the kind of guy who wears high fashion items and fits into a niche. That’s exactly why I founded ‘The Modern Man’ blog with my two mates Sandro Rasà and Kosta Williams. We wanted to find out exactly what defines the modern man of today. That still seems to appeal to a lot of people.
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And what makes your account stand out? The fact that it’s so natural, I think. I’ve remained true to myself. I started out in 2014 and since 2015 I’ve been running my account with a concept. My approach has remained constant since then. The type and quality of content has of course improved, but my outfits and posts have ultimately remained the same. I’m still a
down-to-earth kind of guy, something that’s really important to me because the last thing I want is to come across as arrogant. Even if I have that many followers, it’s no reason for me to get big-headed. I just want to be on equal terms with everyone and do what I enjoy. I also never pushed myself to be a certain kind of person, but always aimed for things that were important to me personally. But one thing you shouldn’t forget is that I started my account really early, which means I have played quite a part in shaping the influencer scene – especially in the men’s sector.
And then came the big bang and the algorithm changed the chronology of the feeds and the reach. Do you think Instagram is oversaturated? If you look around, you do notice that a lot of the accounts are very similar. A lot of them aren’t really doing anything different to what I do. So if someone asks me for advice on what they can do to promote their account I say to them, “Just don’t do the same as me, because that’s already been done.” So where does Instagram’s future lie? That’s an interesting question that the scene often asks, because as a social media star, of course you’re dependent on the success of the platform. If they make any significant changes, for example, the platform might lose its popularity
and influencers would suddenly be out of a job. But if you look at the updates taking place on Instagram over the last few years, they’ve all been positive – whether it was the introduction of Stories or InstagramTV. Would you include the algorithm in that? Let’s just say, it’s different. Two or three years ago Instagram was very organic. I had between five and seven thousand new followers a day with totally normal posts. And then came the big bang and the algorithms changed the chronology of the feeds and the reach. The effects were felt by everyone. I think the platform should stay simple, because at the end of the day that’s the reason why Instagram became so popular: you could select what and who you wanted to see yourself. Without any advertising or external influences. In short, it was simple. And one last question to conclude our interview: what’s the best thing about your job? The feedback from my followers is my personal highlight. The motivation that you get day after day, from all over the world, whether it’s people who write to me or people who spontaneously come up to me on the street and thank me. It’s incredible what that can do to you. And without these people, I would have inevitably reached the point where it would’ve become quite hard for mentally. But my followers are the ones who motivate me to carry on and keep getting better. @MAGICFOX
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INFLUENCER INTERVIEWS – LYN SLATER
LYN SLATER
NOT YOUR TYPICAL INFLUENCER If you spot Lyn Slater on Instagram, you can’t help but like her photos and hit the follow button. The ‘Accidental Icon’ from New York has meanwhile amassed more than 660k followers and is effortlessly taking Instagram’s fashion scene by storm – quite simply because she is the influencer we need right now. We spoke to her about her work as a professor of social work, how she maintains a creative balance and the future of her account. INTERVIEW CHERYLL MÜHLEN PHOTOS COLIN LOM & MICHAEL PANICCIA
How would you introduce yourself? I guess I would say that I am a cultural influencer, a professor and a content creator, as well as being a partner, mother, grandmother, sister and daughter.
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When you say professor, what kind? I’ve actually just retired after 20 years in academia, my last graduation was yesterday. I am a professor of social work and my area has been the intersection of social work in the law, so I’ve also worked with our law school, as well as the school of social work.
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That’s quite contrary to fashion… No, not really. And I’ll tell you why, because I’ve been able to retire early from being a professor, I can do the Accidental Icon thing full time. And I’ve been dealing with all of the issues that fashion is now taking on, such as inclusion, sustainability, human rights, fair labour, for the last 45 years. They’re not new to me. So I can offer experience to the conversation. I have worked in the court system, where many decisions are made on appearance. People don’t like to think that fashion has a lot of power. But clothes express status and class, and people make a lot of judgements based on what you wear.
Do you, as an influencer, feel like you have the advantage of using that power? I think my success as an influencer, when you compare me to other influencers who are at the same level as me and who are not just older women putting up pictures on Instagram, but people who have a very large following, who are monetising at a pretty high degree, I think that shows you the power of it – because I’m not your typical influencer. So I think one of the reasons I’ve been successful is that people are really looking for different models of what it means to be someone who is engaged in fashion. Through that platform I have been able to challenge people’s perception of what it means to be older. And I find it interesting that my largest group of followers is in the 25 to 35 age bracket.
I don’t follow rules like ‘this is the lipstick colour you should wear at a certain age’ because who cares!
But how did it all start in the first place? Was it, like your username suggests, an accident? I have two masters and a PhD and I’ve always been engaged in academic institutions – whether studying my own degrees or teaching. I think I was able to absorb and transform a lot of the very challenging, upsetting, unfair discriminatory things I was witnessing happening to people I was working with because I was always pursuing creative paths to prevent my work experience from harming me emotionally or physically. I was always writing, taking workshops in filmmaking, jewellery making or some other way that I could transform some of the horror of my everyday work experience into something that might be more beautiful and creative, and for me, kind of life saving. When did you take a turn into fashion? I reached this place in academia where it was really getting bureaucratised and very controlling. I didn’t feel that it was absorbing technology, social media and other ways that we could get our research and our ideas out and it’s still very much like: you’re publishing a journal and 200 people are going to read it. So I basically started taking courses at the FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) fashion school in
It sounds like you just did your own thing. Yes, it was very organic, and I think so different from what anyone else was doing that it attracted attention. Fairly quickly. Like about nine months in. I wanted to get away from text and be thinking more about how I use visuals to tell stories. A lot of people doubt the authenticity of posts nowadays because the whole thing has become very planned, curated and business-driven. Has the development had a negative impact on your work? Yes, it’s been a challenge for me because you do need to make money – and it should be okay for us to do that. If you’re really creative, you’ll try to do it in a way that isn’t so different from what you usually do. I work with brands that allow me creative direction. I try to think: if I
Lyn Slater’s style is not dictated by what society expects of someone her age, but reflects her own personal fashion sense – an approach that is proving extremely popular with her followers, especially those aged between 25 and 30.
What’s not shown on Instagram is process. Do you think your age plays a big role in your success? I don’t talk about age at all. Everybody else does in relation to me but I don’t. I’m just a woman living in a city and going about her everyday life, using fashion to make it more exciting. But when people ask me about age I say: “Look at my photos.” I’m performing my age. And at the age of 65 we are not ready to go away. If I remain healthy, I have another 20 years to contribute. And I think some of my popularity comes from showing people that you can have a life at 65. I started this project when I was 61 years old – leading to a life that is nothing like the one I lived before. Now that you’ve filled that gap, is there anything you’re still missing on Instagram? Well, I have this pattern in my life, every five years I start getting a little bit bored with what I’ve been doing and I need a
new challenge. My blog and my Instagram are going to be five years old this September and I have this feeling that I need to do something new. So I’ve been really looking at Instagram and thinking beyond what this platform can offer me other than a way to make money. How can I bring it back to being inspirational? But at the same time, I do have to generate income, which as I’ve mentioned before, is fair because I work hard. So I’ve been thinking about using Instagram TV and Instagram Stories for behindthe-scenes projects with emerging designers. A series where I go into their spaces, where we can see their materials, their process, what’s behind the final product and what they’re trying to do. I think that can be inspiring because what’s not shown on Instagram is process. Things are moving so fast now that I feel like taking a moment to stop and hear about process is an important thing to do right now.
INFLUENCER INTERVIEWS – LYN SLATER
represent this brand, will my followers find it odd? So I have this bottom line that I’m not going to promote anything I wouldn’t wear or use in my everyday life. If I stick to that, then I’m hoping I’ll be okay. But in terms of engagement I do notice that my followers really like my non-sponsored content.
Speaking of process, if you’d have to give your younger self style advice, what would it be? I guess I would say: enjoy, have fun and experiment more with things that you might not think you would like. And if you could finish the sentence: Instagram gave me the opportunity to… …change a conversation. Thank you very much, Lyn. @ICONACCIDENTAL
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obscure things like ‘How to open a vintage store’. I was the oldest student in every class, but students and professors were telling me I have such great style and should start a blog. Other people would tell me the same in stores I was shopping at or they’d stop me on the street. So I started to look out for blogs for older women. And I didn’t really see anything that felt like me. I am more urban, I don’t follow rules like ‘this is the lipstick colour you should wear at a certain age’ because who cares, you know?! (laughing) So I just decided to make pictures and write. I had no agenda. I just thought I’m going to do this and see what happens.
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INFLUENCER INTERVIEWS – YASMINE C. M’BAREK
YASMINE C. M’BAREK
ON THE POLITICAL FRONTLINE “Writer | social & political issues | CGN | yasminembarek.com” is what it says on Yasmine C. M’Barek’s Instagram profile. A 20-year-old student of social studies with an emphasis on politics and more than 15,000 followers. Although she would never describe herself as an influencer, she cannot deny her effortless influence on a generation that tends to shy away from politics. INTERVIEW CHERYLL MÜHLEN PHOTO YASMINE C. M’BAREK
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Yasmine, your account really stands out from most of those of your generation, especially in terms of its content. You incorporate fashion and beauty but also mention politics and religion. What made you start your account? I’m actually a writer with journalistic ambitions. The fact that my account is political is in part down to my studies and general interests having that emphasis. Political work interested me long before Instagram. My opinions on body positivity and my passion for fashion and photos somehow just became intertwined with that because they’re also a part of my identity, and my Instagram account is also a place for me to live out my own creativity.
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Many people, especially the younger generation, find it difficult and risky to talk about politics. Where do you get the self-confidence to openly talk about your opinions because, after all, backlash is virtually guaranteed when it comes to such issues? I think being able to freely express your opinions about politics (and its shortcomings) is a privilege and a must for everyone, especially if you are dealing with it professionally. The backlash comes and goes. But it’s so important for us to raise our voices against populistdominating majorities, regardless of any grief we might get for doing it. And when it comes to my self-confidence, that was never much of an issue. I was lucky
to be able to express my opinion early on in life, which I am sure is what gives me the ‘power’ to voice them on social media.
I started in order to express my opinion and to point out what I consider to be shortcomings in our society. What do you want to achieve or who do you want to reach with your account? I don’t have any specific target group but it’s easiest to reach those who are interested in politics. I think everyone should have an active interest in politics. There are few places in the world where having a say in the political process is such a natural right. That’s why, although this might sound a bit odd, I’d like to reach everyone, people from all walks of life, because politics affects us all. What I want to achieve with my account? That’s not really a question I ask myself, because I started with it in order to voice my opinion and to attract attention to the grievances that I see around me. What does being an influencer mean for you? I would never (!) describe myself as an influencer. My political and journalistic work simply spilled over into social media and helped me to exchange opinions and be
able to voice my thoughts to a somewhat larger audience. The fact that growing follower numbers also bring a certain level of responsibility is something I’m very conscious of, but that’s why it’s important for me to always show that all these analyses are my own opinions. But I do enjoy connecting with like-minded people. What do you think of Instagram as a tool? I think it’s very helpful and also risky at the same time. Just as my opinions can quickly gain an audience, people with right-wing ideologies or distorted and normative stereotypes can also use it to find their own followers. That’s certainly something that we should keep in mind. But in the era of (very) slowly advancing digitalisation, Instagram, from a professional perspective, is an increasingly important tool, for which I’m very grateful. What do you think the future holds for you? Perhaps a role in politics? At the moment my aim is still definitely to work in journalism. But I’ll continue combining that with social media because the connections and networking it offers are simply the future. I could certainly imagine getting into politics later on, even working in a ministry. But in these fast-moving times I think it’s better not to pin yourself down. One thing I’m sure of is that the future will be political. @CEREMONIALSOFASAVAGE
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INFLUENCER INTERVIEWS – JUSTUS F. HANSEN
JUSTUS F. HANSEN
STAY TRUE TO YOURSELF Now 27 years old, Justus F. Hansen was actually studying law when he started posting his outfits on Instagram back in 2014. And then everything changed. Over 370,000 followers later, he has shelved his studies to follow his mission of providing modern gentlemen with styling tips and advice – which has brought him success and also the jet set life. But he still doesn’t fit into the typical influencer cliché. INTERVIEW CHERYLL MÜHLEN PHOTO JUSTUS F. HANSEN
Are you aware of the influence that you have on others? Let’s put it this way: I just do my job and share it with others, but I think it would be wrong of me to assume that I’m influencing hundreds of thousands of people with what I do. That’s not even in the back of my mind, so my answer would have to be no. Let’s consider Instagram as a purely business tool; how much of the business potential do you see as an advantage and disadvantage? The more money is pumped into the market, the more the influencers accepted offers from brands that they otherwise wouldn’t accept. I think that, in a lot of ways, people are being put to the test.
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How do you mean that? Are their followers still liking the content or has the person become a sort of lacklustre advertising space? That’s something I’ve seen happen quite a lot. The positive aspect is that you get the chance to switch from being an influencer to an entrepreneur and create your own market value.
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Let’s talk about your own market value: what criteria do you have when it comes to choosing your cooperation partners? As a matter of principle, I only take on jobs and market products, brands and ideas that I can get behind and that I like personally. On the one hand, I choose the ones I am familiar with; and they are mainly heritage brands because the fashion sector in particular defines itself by
quality – or at least some of it. If the cooperation is well paid, but the quality isn’t good, then I won’t take on the job. It’s as simple as that. Sounds like a very authentic approach… Yes, but authenticity brings in the least money and isn’t always popular with the big names. Companies want to have their advertising space and they want to see their products being photographed and presented really well. All the better when it’s a good fit for the brand, but at the end of the day they really only want the reach you have. Some don’t even really put any thought into whether the influencer even fits in with their advertising concept. So if you want to stay true to yourself as an influencer, you can also quickly end up falling by the wayside, because the bigger the brands you’re working with, the more of a negative impact it has if you turn the offer down.
Being an influencer is about more than just taking photos. To what extent does the world of the male influencer differ from that of the female? In terms of the budget and the opportunities offered. I would claim that the beauty industry has a lot of money to spread around. There’s simply a much bigger choice of cooperations out there for women, and I would also say that there’s more interest there too. You just
need to take a glimpse into a Zara store to see that: there’s usually one floor for menswear and the other three floors are for women. It shows you where the money is in the fashion industry. Despite that, I believe that the world of the male influencer is developing, also as far as the cosmetics industry is concerned. Which influencer stereotype would you like to break down? The idea that being an influencer is as easy as just taking the odd photo. That’s an important point for me because a lot of people tend to sneer at the influencer profession. But there’s a whole lot more to it than people think – whether the photo is taken professionally or just on your phone; there’s a lot of work that goes into it, a whole lot of communication, fashion editing, styling, it’s basically an entire production. And you have to have a lot of know-how for your community. And you have to build up a certain reach to even be acknowledged as an influencer. For me, it took five years before people could say: “He only uploads one picture a day”. It took me a long time to even start earning anything, but I was still having to make a lot of investments. Now I have a photographer to take and edit my photos professionally, I can pick and choose my cooperation partners and do what I enjoy doing; all aspects that a lot of people simply don’t see. Thanks a lot for talking to us, Justus. @JUSTUSF_HANSEN
STATEMENTS – INFLUENCER MARKETING
HOT RIGHT NOW Influencer marketing is arguably the big buzzword of the moment. Firmly established as a communications tool, it has become indispensable in the marketing mix of tomorrow. We asked six brands and business about their approach and what to consider when working with influencers. COMPILED BY AYLIN YAVUZ
“We work with lots of partner companies, so that when it comes to influencer campaigns we aren’t just using big influencers with huge reaches but, above all, the right influencers who have strong personalities and a clear stance on things. Authenticity is key because social media users, agencies and companies have simply had enough of the faked Instagram version of life.” KEVIN HIPPERT – FOUNDER OF TRENDUP MEDIA
“Adidas have been cooperating with bloggers and influencers for a number of years now and the focus is always on authentic cooperation. Online and offline communication and cooperation with creative people from the most diverse fields is very important for us. After all, our target group’s purchasing decisions are mainly influenced by personal recommendations.”
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“One of the first steps in building my brand was to get people to give a damn. I spent days on end building up a social media following. At some point I realised: why wait for the wholesale accounts to pick up my line? That was the typical approach of most young brands. So, I decided to turn things around and relinquish the power. I believe that this decision was what made Orseund Iris so successful.”
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ALANA JOHNSON – FOUNDER & DESIGNER OF ORSEUND IRIS
PHOTO INSTAGRAM @LANATHECOWBOY
OLIVER BRÜGGEN – SENIOR DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC RELATIONS AT ADIDAS
STATEMENTS – INFLUENCER MARKETING
“Influencers were important even before social media, but now we get the chance to work with a lot of different personalities – worldwide and in real time. We’re all living in the post-Fyre Festival reality and customers these days can see through advertising tricks – the time has come to focus and only work with personalities who really share a brand’s beliefs. Influencers and brands need to work together as partners. That’s probably the scariest part, because you have to hand over the control of the brand and its message and let another personality and their perspective in. But when it works, it works really well. The media landscape and the relevance of different channels and formats are changing constantly. Yes, we are all permanently online and use social media, but offline experiences are still relevant in the digital era, for example in the form of events. It all comes down to finding the ideal mix.” JONNY NG – DIRECTOR OF MARKETING STRATEGY AND CAMPAIGNS AT ZALANDO
“The question isn’t so much whether you want to work with influencer marketing, but how and with whom. The choice of influencers and strategies are oriented on the brand fit, our overarching communications goal and the ‘engagement’ of the influencers for a particular topic. In the influencer business it’s no longer just about inspiring people with pretty pictures. Influencers set trends, act as style icons for a lot of people and therefore bring the necessary traffic and turnover we want as cooperation partner.” TEWE JOHANNES MAAS – HEAD OF MARKETING AT PEEK & CLOPPENBURG KG
KRISTINA SZASZ – CHIEF PRODUCT & MARKETING OFFICER AT S.OLIVER
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“Influencer marketing is an integral part of our s.Oliver campaigns. Over the past few years we’ve identified a pool of different personalities we can work with and mutually trust. What’s important is authenticity, personality and brand fit. The advantage for us is mainly in the fact that we can access new target groups that way – especially young, fashion-savvy consumers and potential new customers. Beyond that, influencer marketing is also a great chance to boost the positive image of our brand.”
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BRAND INTERVIEWS – AXEL ARIGATO
BRAND INTERVIEWS – AXEL ARIGATO
THE WILL TO ACT –
OR HOW TO CONQUER THE WORLD WITH INSTAGRAM What’s the best way to successfully launch a label in the 21st century? Via Instagram. This was proven by founders Albin Johansson and Max Svärdh five years ago when they launched their underdog brand Axel Arigato and Instagram was still a long way off from becoming a profitable marketplace. Today they have almost half a million followers, a number that increases by thousands more with every weekly drop… INTERVIEW PIERRE D’AVETA TEXT CHERYLL MÜHLEN PHOTOS MARKUS BRONOLD
brands with our own product without people knowing that we were actually behind the account. This way we were able to get a lot of followers on our main account before we even had launched. So you tried to create a buzz before your actual launch by showing your products on the ‘fake account’ beforehand. What was the name of the account? Albin: Oh, I won’t tell you the name because it might come back again. (grinning) But to be honest with you, we also learned a lot through this account – how to gain followers, how to work with hashtags, how to engage with the followers. It was our trial and error account.
To start off, how did you guys meet and why did you start Axel Arigato? Albin: Max and I were friends. We hung out together a lot and both worked in fashion and e-commerce. Max had his own e-shop and I was working for the largest e-commerce fashion group in Scandinavia at the time so we would often meet at fairs and talk about what was going on. One day Max came up with an idea about shoes and direct-to-consumer, which was pretty much the buzz thing in 2013. It seemed very appealing and interesting to us because it didn’t require a big investment. If you knew how to work with social media back in those days, which seems very weird now, you could really achieve huge growth and a great brand awareness without putting in any capital. It was totally different to what it is today.
And you immediately caught people’s attention… Albin: The idea was to have the best of two worlds. These days everyone is working with online, wholesale and retail, or at least those who can; but when we started out that wasn’t the case. Brands weren’t working online, so we were an online or digital-first company. And we tried to figure out what multibrand companies do better, especially with constant product releases. ‘What’s new?’ is what drives most traffic and that’s what they want to talk about. Multi-brands are also good at customer service, experience and driving traffic to their websites, whereas mono-brands at that time were very good at taking care of the brand, building authenticity and so on but they were not so good at building sales – not through directto-consumer, but to wholesale. So we asked ourselves: how do we mix this up? It was very important for us to not only do one silhouette and one shoe; it needed to work as a store.
But is it true that a fake Instagram account was your main strategy to get started? Max: Yes, before we launched the Arigato account we started with our fake account where we mixed a lot of different
What do you mean by that? Albin: We had our ‘drop of the week’ concept. We couldn’t do ‘what’s new’ like the multi-brands so we started with the drop of the week: we would launch one new product every single
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Yes, you read that correctly: a new product drop every week! That has been the promise of sneaker and fashion brand Axel Arigato ever since it launched online back in 2014. Not a problem for a big company with a long-established, professional team and the corresponding budget, but two guys without much know-how and financial back-up? The sceptics questioning the two young founders and their, admittedly, rather risky concept soon had to eat their words, however, as five years after the label made its debut, Johansson and Svärdh are still keeping their promise with Axel Arigato – and it is precisely this ‘just do it’ attitude that seems to be the two pioneers’ secret to success. We visited them at their headquarters in Gothenburg, Sweden to find out how they are using Instagram and direct consumer contact to their advantage and why their meetings only take one minute.
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BRAND INTERVIEWS – AXEL ARIGATO
“JAPAN IS A BIG SOURCE OF INSPIRATION FOR US AND ‘ARIGATO’ MEANS ‘THANK YOU’ IN JAPANESE.” MAX SVÄRDH — CO-FOUNDER OF AXEL ARIGATO
week. People thought Axel Arigato was big, even though it was just two guys, literally sitting working together in our underwear. They couldn’t see our inventory. We only had 26 or 40 pairs of each product. So our stocks weren’t big, but they looked very big to the consumer. We sold to 14 countries on three different continents in the first two days. In Mexico, the US, Germany, Sweden and I don’t remember the others, but they wouldn’t have bought from us if we hadn’t had the followers on Instagram and the confidence in our website. Max: What we wanted to do is create a brand that responds to how young people are acting today – in terms of how they are consuming media. How do they discover brands? What kind of products are they interested in? That was important for us: to do it in this new type of way, because we were young as well. With the emphasis on ‘were’! (laughing) But a lot of things all come down to you personally, i.e. how you act, how you want to be approached, how you get inspired; and that’s something we went back to when we started the brand. And how things work today. That was really important and still is. I think that has been key. If we had done everything like all the other brands, I don’t think we would have been able to penetrate the market at all. To sum up: we are a young company started by young people for young people. That was very important. Albin: It’s still very important because if you think about pricing, we always said at the beginning of the season: “Okay, what is this product and what do we think we should pay for it?” Usually the pricing is calculated down to the last cent. How do you do it? Albin: We do it back to front. We start by asking ourselves what the product is worth. If the margin requirement says it would cost 250 euros, but we don’t think that that’s a good consumer price and 180 euros would be better, then we need to solve it financially and company-wise and work out how we can offer that price.
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It sounds pretty easy when you say it like that… Max: Well, you shouldn’t overthink things. Of course we still talk a lot and plan, but in general, it’s better to act and do it instead of talking about it too much. You’ll figure out most things along the way. We’ve made a lot of mistakes but at least we’ve gone out there and done things.
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Albin: We’re not talkers, we’re doers. We talk things through for one minute and then it’s done. Especially in the beginning, when our roles were pretty much defined. I didn’t need to tell
Max what I had done, and he didn’t need to tell me either. We just did our shit. Why waste time on meetings? We understand that we need to have them, but we don’t want to waste our time on unnecessary things. Let’s just see if it works or not. And where did the name come from? Max: Instead of stating the obvious with either my or Albins name in front of the brand we created the Axel persona. At the time it was very common to put your own name once or twice before the brand name and we wanted to do the opposite. Japan is a big source of inspiration for us and ‘arigato’ means ‘thank you’ in Japanese. Albin: But ‘arigato’ also means ‘unique’. We always want to create something unique. If everyone is running left, then we’re running right. And that’s exactly what we did at the time. Not necessarily today because we are no longer pioneers like we used to be, but we always try to keep that pioneer mentality in our everyday lives. We challenge ourselves. That’s a very big strength of ours. We are never satisfied. Two years after you launched your account and your online shop, you opened your first store in Soho, London. Many online brands are going offline nowadays. Do you think that going from online to offline is easier? Max: It depends on the background, but we had both only ever really worked online, so for us it was easier because it simply made sense to start online – we had the knowledge to navigate online and knew how to do it. But we were very interested in physical spaces as well. And showing the true DNA of the brand. What was it like meeting your customers in the real world? What surprised you? Albin: It was incredible. I was really surprised at how much people admired us and the brand. I can still remember some of them approaching me and asking for my autograph. I was shocked. We had never met a single customer before that. Max: The first day we opened I did wonder if anybody would show up at all. But they came. And the first hour was really stressful. It’s always interesting to be the newcomer and the space was quite unique. Some knew the brand already and for others it was completely new. The UK wasn’t a big market for us at the time, so it was a very interesting experience – also for the customers. We wanted to create a gallery vibe. One way to do that is to display all the shoes on podiums, which adds value to the product because it’s not displayed on shelves as usual. You’re giving the product the setting it deserves in a gallery vibe and with a clean, arty backdrop.
BRAND INTERVIEWS – AXEL ARIGATO N° 77
AXEL ARIGATO Max Svärdh (left) and Albin Johansson (right) don’t beat around the bush when it comes to making decisions, preferring instead to follow their gut instincts. And their success is proving them right: regular new drops, conceptual stores and shop-in-shop areas, not to mention their incredibly loyal followers, are what make the young company stand out from the crowd.
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BRAND INTERVIEWS – AXEL ARIGATO
BRAND INTERVIEWS – AXEL ARIGATO
“IT’S NO LONGER ABOUT GEOGRAPHY AND NATIONS ANYMORE. WE LIVE IN A GLOBAL WORLD.” ALBIN JOHANSSON — CO-FOUNDER OF AXEL ARIGATO
But you want visitors to stay longer in the store and enjoy their time there, right? Albin: Yes, it’s not a place for transactions. It’s a place to hang out. Experience is such an overused word now but that’s why we have the steps in our store in London. We want people to socialise there. It seems as if you never stand still. Albin: Change is a very important word for us. We want to embrace that. As Max said, we were young, we created the brand and wanted to do something for us. And we still want to create something for young people – even though we’re getting older. But we want to inspire them as much as we want to be inspired by them. That’s why we need to embrace change. If you don’t do things, you can’t change.
vant among your consumers? That’s the super important question. How can we keep changing and surprise our customers so they’ll get excited about what’s coming next? Let’s talk about the Axel Arigato style: your sneakers are very minimalistic and clean but also very loud and contemporary at the same time. What is your design approach? Max: We have different products for different kinds of customer. We want to create products that evoke reactions and feelings. What’s your approach to the clothing collections? Max: Creating a clothing line makes more sense to us because we want to sell a whole look. We wanted to incorporate what we did with shoes in the clothing as well, to sell our customers the full idea of what we are thinking.
What countries are your strongest markets and where would you like to expand to soon? Albin: Through our website we have sold to more than 150 countries. But everything is interesting in terms of expansion. It’s no longer about geography and nations anymore. We live in a global world. It’s more about: where do people like us? And if that is in the US, Germany or Japan, that’s fine with us. We’re still a small company so we can’t be everywhere unfortunately. We’re based in Europe so that’s our main market as well. But our strongest market is surprisingly not Sweden, but the UK.
What is your personal goal for Axel Arigato? Albin: To have fun every day and to be inspired every day – so that something can happen every day.
There’s a huge array of social media channels to choose from – but how do you know which platform is the right one for your brand and why did you choose Instagram? Max: It comes back down to ourselves again. How did we discover brands? And how did we get inspired? And everything at that time led us to Instagram. It was just a natural decision to start there.
Albin: It was such a crazy project. We launched in July 2014, and then in September, when we were making sales of 25,000 euros per month, we approached the landlord in London and told him that we wanted to open a store. And they were like: “Who are you, guys?” To us it didn’t matter who we are but where we want to be. It took two years from the day we met them the first time until we opened the store. We really worked for that spot and I don’t think we’ll ever find a better location than the one in Soho. As Max once said, even if we went bankrupt, we’d still have the best store in London.
And nowadays? Max: That’s the million-dollar question! Albin: Instagram isn’t what it used to be because it works in a totally different way now because of the algorithms. So you need to identify your customer and find out who you want to communicate with. And that person you want to communicate with, whether young or old, informed or uninformed, where is that person? They could be on a lot of different channels.
And looking back, what are you most proud of, or what has been the most challenging aspect so far? Max: Everything has been challenging but that’s also fun. But the biggest milestone – for me – was that we opened our first store in London because we had never done anything physical before then. That was a big moment for me.
Max: It was a real game changer for us. To conclude our interview, please complete the following sentence: Axel Arigato is… Albin: … a dream.
Thank you very much for talking to us.
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Max: And change. Are classic communication tools such as magazines just as interesting for you as the new media? Albin: I think the question should be about trends around the world. The competition is so high. So how can you stay rele-
AXELARIGATO.COM @AXELARIGATO
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BRAND INTERVIEWS – NA-KD
UNDER THE INFLUENCE NA-KD doesn’t just sound young and catchy, it really is: around four years ago, its founder Jarno Vanhatapio closed the market gap for an online store that targeted precisely Generations Y and Z with a concept based entirely around social media. He then went on to establish NA-KD as a brand in its own right. We met up with Social Merchant & B2B Manager Magnus Hjörne for a chat about storytelling, authenticity and influencers. INTERVIEW RENÉE DIEHL
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What has been the main contributing factor to NA-KD’s success? 70 percent of our customers are under 25 so we designed NA-KD around this target group. But we didn’t want to become a fast fashion player like Boohoo or Missguided, we really wanted to become a brand. If you have a handbag that says NA-KD on it, you should be proud of it. Today, our logo pieces are selling really well. I think a key aspect of becoming that kind of brand was creating the right environment for our own brand by bringing external ones like Levi’s and Calvin Klein to our website and thus positioning NA-KD right next to them. And another thing was, of course, working with influencers who would make our brand credible.
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Do the influencers also have an influence on NA-KD? They do. Listening to the people that have the power over what is trending is essential. We need to adapt to what they say very quickly. In addition, we are developing a lot of collections in collaboration with influencers – this year we are dropping 120 collabs, which all have to be authentic. So the influencers themselves have a lot of power over how a collection will look, what qualities and fits are used and so on. Of course, we can give them recommendations, but they are the ones who have the final say on the designs.
Magnus Hjörne, Social Merchant & B2B Manager – Wholesale
We tend to collaborate on the collections with micro-influencers because that’s how we create an authentic vibe. The average age of your company’s employees is around 24. Is NA-KD’s success an indicator of generational change in the industry? In what ways do you think this change is necessary? If you want to attract Generations Y and Z, the majority of your employees cannot be 50+ years old. Of course, having young employees is challenging because they are less experienced, but what’s more important to us is that they contribute their creative minds and critical thinking to our company and help to push it forward. NA-KD’s success shows that this change is indeed necessary. Speaking of change: why has an online shop with such a digital-based concept decided on taking steps into stationary retail and what benefits has this brought so far? We never wanted to become an offline shop, but we soon saw that if we really wanted to become the brand that we wanted to be, it’s also important to have physical touchpoints for the consumer.
So two years ago we started selling wholesale, but very strictly positioning our brand in an environment similar to on our website, which means next to Tommy Jeans, Levi’s and so on. We are now sold at 1,500 POS all across Europe. The stores can see that we are attracting younger consumers to their retail spaces. So the focus for now is expanding in the wholesale business; by the end of August there are 200 more planned – we are growing rapidly. And we can see that we are also growing faster online in the markets in which we have a larger offline presence now. Let’s take a deeper look into the future: what are the next steps you will be taking to secure NA-KD’s growth? As I mentioned before, one of the biggest projects will be improving the supply chain. Additionally, we are currently developing our first sustainable collection, which is going to drop during autumn 2019. We also plan on expanding that product range further in 2020 and becoming more and more transparent along the way. And lastly, we are still working on offline growth, especially on merging online and offline together as an overall concept. So if, for example, an influencer collection drops, it goes online and there are in-store launch events taking place at the same time. NA-KD.COM @NAKDFASHION
PARIS SEPT.
17 >19 2019 YARNS FABRICS LEATHER DESIGNS ACCESSORIES MANUFACTURING
BRAND INTERVIEWS – INUIKII
DON’T FOLLOW EVERY TREND With just one model, the highly fashionable lambskin boot, Inuikii has managed to conquer the European shoe market. The family-run company from Switzerland has meanwhile extended its portfolio and sells its handmade collections in 29 countries. And all that despite having to change its name from Ikii to Inuikii due to a lawsuit by a French company. It’s a setback that might have put other brands out of business, but Cinzia, Alessio and Danilo Maag came out unscathed thanks to their extremely unique design. We visited the Maag family at their headquarters to find out more.
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INTERVIEW PIERRE D’AVETA TEXT CYNTHIA BLASBERG PHOTOS MARKUS BRONOLD
A family affair: Cinzia Maag with her two sons and business partners Danilo and Alessio.
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Cinzia, you come from the industry and were responsible for establishing Hunter Boots in German-speaking countries. What made you set up your own footwear brand? Cinzia: I’m actually one of those women who likes to wear heels. Winter boots were never fashionable enough for me and I’m not a fan of heavy footwear. I had never worn lambskin boots before. But during my work at Hunter, a lot of customers told me that something new was lacking: a brand selling lambskin boots that are highly fashionable and comfortable. Inuikii was just my attempt at something that happened to work well from the get-go. What was the inspiration behind the design of the first lambskin boots? Cinzia: I have a good sense when it comes to combining colours, patterns and materials. I do it intuitively, but I wouldn’t necessarily say that I’m a designer. My son Alessio is responsible for that part. As well as Alessio, your son Danilo also works for the company. How did Inuikii end up turning into a family-run company? And how did you divide up the responsibilities? Cinzia: Alessio and Danilo have basically been involved from the outset. To begin with, they were only helping me on the side as Alessio was still studying industrial design and Danilo already had a very good job at a digital agency as consultant. Danilo is very skilled at the whole social media side of things and Alessio has great taste! (laughing) So Alessio does the design, I’m involved in the creative part, Danilo does the marketing, and we divide the sales responsibilities between us. Overall, I am responsible for the production and I’m also the CEO.
BRAND INTERVIEWS – INUIKII INUIKII It all started with the meanwhile legendary boots. Today they’re not only available in different colours, but also countless patterns. At the headquarters, the trio is constantly working on new designs – also for summer.
We invest a lot of love in the design and composition of the boots.
well as very negative. But overall it has brought us really close together as a team and the brand where it is now. Alessio: I really enjoy working together. For me it’s a positive experience because we are very honest with one another and don’t avoid confrontation. That’s also how we were brought up. It’s part of our recipe to success. The way things are going, being able to work with the family has been a real boon for us. Looking at Inuikii’s collections, the first thing I notice is that you offer a reduced
Alessio: Of course it’s also down to the complexity of the models. It wouldn’t even be possible to make the boot on a machine because certain production steps are too complicated. Like the hand embroidery, for example. Cinzia, you just said that anyone can come to the production sites if they want. That brings me onto my next
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Alessio and Danilo, you were still in your twenties at the end of 2012 when Inuikii was established, and just starting out on the career ladder. Usually that’s also a time to cut ties from the family and do your own thing. What’s it like working with your brother and mother in the same company? Danilo: Which 29-year-old man would consider the idea of working together with his mother? Probably not many. But we don’t have a typical mother-son relationship. We see each other as equals and respect each other. Nevertheless, it’s family, which can be very positive as
range of three different shoe types: you have the boot, a sneaker variation of the boot and the slip-on sandal. And it’s remarkable that every shoe is handmade. Why is handcraftsmanship so important to you? Cinzia: We invest a lot of love in the design and composition of the boots. That’s an important aspect of the whole concept, so the shoes also have to be made with love. Anyone can come and see that for themselves at the production sites.
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BRAND INTERVIEWS – INUIKII
question about transparency, especially in terms of production and the origin of the materials. How transparent are you? Cinzia: We make sure we know exactly where our materials come from and we’ve been to the factories ourselves to make sure we know how they are producing. We have our shoes made in Portugal and Romania, i.e. in Europe, and the majority of our materials comes from Italy. Where do you get the shearling for your boots? Cinzia: It mainly comes from Europe and some of it from Australia, but it’s tanned in China. Although I do have to add that we started getting it tanned in Spain, but the company was bought by a Chinese firm and so they started doing it in China. We visited them and were positively surprised. I had never seen such a clean tannery and it didn’t have the pungent smell you usually find!
Are there any plans to communicate these production processes to your end consumers? Danilo: That’s a good point. For the winter season we are planning to communicate precisely these topics on our social media channels, especially on Instagram. And also in a section on the website where the consumer can see the different production/material topics, what we want to change and what still needs to be improved. Speaking of which, where do you stand on Instagram etc.? Danilo: Instagram is the ultimate channel for us, we really can communicate everything on it. We enter into a lot of collaborations with influencers. We’ve hit the jackpot with Inuikii in that respect because we haven’t had to buy in any content yet. We receive so many requests, mainly from international influ-
encers, that we’re unable to deliver to them all. Thanks to Instagram we’ve been able to get closer to our end consumers and show them, for example, how to wear and style our boots. What can we expect from Inuikii in the coming seasons? Are you planning on extending your range, for example with classic sneakers? Cinzia: To be honest, I’m resisting the whole sneaker idea. There are already so many out there. Should Inuikii really jump on the bandwagon too? That just doesn’t make sense to me. But of course we want to develop further. We have a lot of rudimentary ideas at the moment. Specifically, we’re looking at bringing out a summer boot. Danilo: I learnt something important from my mother: don’t follow every trend, stay true to yourself instead. That’s why we’re holding on to our boots and our interpretation of a sneaker and trying to make a name for ourselves with those while continuing to expand the brand. INUIKII.COM @INUIKII
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They all have clearly assigned roles and responsibilities and treat each other as equals. Of course working together as a family isn’t always easy, but it’s definitely brought them closer.
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Denim for every season
16 – 19 September 2019 Paris Le Bourget France www.texworld-paris.com
BRAND INTERVIEWS – CANDIANI
STORE & SHOWROOM –
CANDIANI’S WAY OF TEACHING Knowledge is power. That’s why Italian family-owned company Candiani has made it its business to not only educate the B2B industry, but also to give the end consumer the necessary insights into denim production – in two ingenious ways: with the new showroom at their headquarters and the first Candiani store in the heart of Milan. At the beginning of May, Simon Giuliani, Global Marketing Director at Candiani, took us on a tour of both the showroom and the store and explained the concept behind them. INTERVIEW PIERRE D’AVETA TEXT CHERYLL MÜHLEN PHOTOS MARKUS BRONOLD
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We’re sitting in Candiani’s recently opened and newly refurbished showroom on the mill compound. What is the concept of the showroom? It’s the result of the strategy that we implemented five years ago. We realised that in order to be competitive we had to explain the value of our fabrics and our concept.
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What is your concept? It’s all about sustainable innovation to create quality fabrics with a very high fashion appeal that is research-driven. Research and development is key for Candiani and it’s something we’re doing daily at the highest level, which also means that we collaborate with the best suppliers around the world because we always source the best raw materials or develop our own. But five years ago, we realised that in order to communicate and make our clients understand all these special features of our fabrics, we need to bring the client here to Candiani
and show them where we are, who we are and how we do things. Unfortunately not many people have time to stop by and it was quite hard for us to get them down here, but now we’re getting daily requests for visits – and have at least two visits a week from clients. What does a visit look like? Basically we started by creating a guided tour of the company, where we explain in depth what we do; we figured out that we’re still very technical and maybe too technical for clients to understand, so we started creating lots of marketing materials that would simplify the explanation of these technicalities, leading to the founding of our Candiani Denim Blueniversity, a crash course, if you like, for our clients, because we know that they can’t usually make it for more than two or three days. Who visits your Blueniversity? In the beginning it was mainly designers
and merchandisers who visited our classes, which explains the whole production process from fibre to the spinning, dyeing, weaving and finishing departments; we even go further and show them the laundry aspect of the business because it’s important to see how you can transform the fabric into a finished garment. It really was quite a revelation because most people only knew bits and pieces. Sure, they knew about certain techniques, but they couldn’t tell the difference in detail, which would provide them with knowledge to enable them to do their jobs better. That was our whole aim. It’s important to understand that denim today is no longer what it used to be: it used to be a very rough and ready fabric compared to what we have now. It was ‘just’ a cotton twill fabric. Nowadays we have natural, artificial, synthetic fibres, recycled fibres, biosynthetic fibres; you not only have to work on the look but also on the performance of the fabric. You have to evolve in what you’re doing
BRAND INTERVIEWS – CANDIANI The new store in Milan opened its doors at the beginning of May. Simon Giuliani gave us a guided tour.
Apart from designers taking your courses, who else is benefitting from your showroom offer? Well, we started with designers, but soon they realised that the marketing department should know what is going on here too, because if they know, they can build a story around it and tell the consumer. Next question was: how about the sales guys? They also need a couple of really
good arguments to push the product. So they started to send the wholesale team as well. And now we’re even training the sales people who work on the shop floor. Which is the most important thing because at the end of the day you can have the greatest concept, the greatest ideas and the greatest product but if the guy on the shop floor can’t communicate it to the final consumer, he’s not going to make the sale. And today, if you explain to the consumer what they’re buying, they will make a favourable judgement and also be willing to pay more. But if you don’t tell them anything, then they only have price as a criterion – that is hard to beat and not the business we want to be in. We’re not playing in the price league but in the quality league. But that, again, needs to be communicated. That is why the Candiani family decided to set up a system in order to support our clients in communi-
Denim used to be a very simple fabric compared to what we are offering now.
cating the fabric as an added value to the final consumer. So you really needed a space that teaches people and shows them the creative possibilities that the present and the future can offer … Yes, we try to sensitise people to four major points: where do you produce? What materials do you use? Which technologies do you use to apply these materials or to transform them? And the fourth point is our DC, the Development Centre. We show people how you can treat your garment in order to create the highest efficiency and highest aesthetic. It’s a unique support tool because you come here, see the collection, choose your fabrics and with the mood board your designers created, we choose the most appropriate fabric for the collection you’re trying to create. It’s a real win-win situation for us – for the client and also for the final consumer. How does the architectural concept of the showroom reflect Candiani’s concept? The new building reflects exactly the history of Candiani. Three materials have
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because the world and the consumers are changing all the time. And the world can no longer absorb all the rubbish and waste that we have been producing in the past. So you have to be at the forefront of something that the world can actually work with.
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BRAND INTERVIEWS – CANDIANI
“WE WANT THE STORE TO BE A VENUE THAT TELLS THE TRUE AND COMPLETE STORY OF EVERYONE’S FAVOURITE THING TO WEAR – JEANS.” SIMON GIULIANI — GLOBAL MARKETING DIRECTOR OF CANDIANI
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always driven our taste: concrete, glass and granite, which are all integrated into the headquarters, which date back to the 1960s, and now in the new showroom as well. It’s timeless and very modern at the same time.
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You not only opened a new showroom but also premiered with your very first store in the centre of Milan – a progressive move for a manufacturer. How did you come up with the idea in the first place and what’s the philosophy behind the store? As I mentioned before, our long-term strategy is based on education. For the last few years, this has really been focused at the B2B level, and has revolved around three activities: the Development Centre, the brand training sessions and thirdly, we came up with a series of branding tools: hangtags, labels and our signature Golden Rivet. This offers our clients a means to visually communicate Candiani as an added value, and to support brands in distinguishing their product from others. Now the opening of the Candiani Denim store is an extension of this strategy, but this time focused at the B2C level. We consider it as an additional support tool for our brands, where we now get to interface directly with their customers and explain everything we’ve been sharing with them this whole time. It is an important opportunity, not only to demystify the concept of sustainability, but also to provide a step-by-step explanation of how denim and, following on from that, jeans are made. We discovered that the average consumer often doesn’t even know the difference be-
tween denim and jeans, and certainly doesn’t know anything about the laundry process. They simply think 501s are born with that light blue fade, and are not aware that there is an intense industrial process behind it. We want the store to be a venue that tells the true and complete story of everyone’s favourite thing to wear – jeans. Why Milan though? Tell us something about the location. Our store is in the old city centre, just around the corner from the cathedral. It is located in a relatively residential area, off the beaten track and away from the hustle and bustle of nearby shopping districts. Aside from being a beautiful part of town with a very authentic Milanese vibe, we intentionally chose it because we didn’t want to be tied down to any pre-conceptions about target and costs as we don’t feel like that is representative of what we have to offer. We want to be a destination shop – the most reputable denim ‘bottega’ in Milan, punto. You only feature a selection of your customers in the store: how do you curate them and how do you deal with clients who also want to be featured? The selection was easily made. We wanted the shop to be a showcase for our Golden Rivet clients, who for us represent quality products, responsibly manufactured, by brands that reflects our mentality and values. We don’t make jeans, but if we did, we’d want them to be just like this. Each of these brands have demonstrated they are experts of their craft, and have
established themselves as loyal customers, many of whom we now consider friends. However, our vision for the future is to expand the range of Golden Rivet brands, and to co-create limited run collections with those that stand out. It is an opportunity for them to collaborate with us one on one and to take advantage of this unique marketing experience. You even founded a new company for the store. Why? We are aware that it is a business that differs from our background and expertise; we felt it required building a new team to face this challenge. We’re taking this new venture really seriously and it’s something we really believe in. We view it as a rare opportunity for us, as suppliers, to talk directly to the end-consumer and to share with them the whole background of such iconic products. We believe this is the kind of genuine and tangible example of the level of transparency the industry is currently pushing for. And, most importantly, we want end-consumers to have the background knowledge to evaluate what is and what isn’t sustainable for themselves. Are you planning to open any more stores like this? No, there are currently no plans to open more stores. Just like everything at Candiani, we continue to stick to quality over quantity. It is a chance for us to expand the storytelling about our quality, and for consumers to visualise our production in a more tangible way. CANDIANIDENIM.IT @CANDIANIDENIM
BRAND INTERVIEWS – CANDIANI N° 77
CANDIANI STORE Perfectly stocked and curated, the store has a prime location in Milan’s city centre. And the new showroom on the grounds of the headquarters in Robecchetto offers more space for customer seminars and design processes.
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BRAND INTERVIEWS – CG-CLUB OF GENTS
WELCOME TO THE CLUB With their unconventional ways CG-Club of Gents are breathing fresh air into the ready-to-wear segment – and their approach is clearly proving popular. While many German fashion manufacturers aren’t doing as well, this is one company that’s reporting constant growth and even an export ratio of 50 percent in more than 21 countries. We spoke to Florian Wortmann, Division Head at CGClub of Gents, about brand identity, the right marketing and the signature Club of Gents style. INTERVIEW AYLIN YAVUZ
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What makes CG-Club of Gents different from Carl Gross and other menswear labels? CG-Club of Gents is progressive and wearable at the same time. We are a very approachable brand and always take our customers on the journey with us. We not only embody our brand values ‘authentic, straight and confident’, but also live and breathe them. Or to put it differently: we bring the formalwear trends to the street and make them wearable. But most of all, we always keep the end customer in mind and don’t try to just look at things through designer-tinted spectacles. The foundation stones of our brand are Brit pop and the Mods’ attitude to life. That’s exactly what we stand for.
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Within CG-Club of Gents you have three different lines: Club of Gents, Savile Row by Club of Gents and Your Own Party by Club of Gents. What differentiates the three? CG-Club of Gents offers excellent value for money – the motto ‘you get what you pay for’ is being redefined here. Attention to detail in the workmanship and highquality fabrics combined with a competent fit to suit the wearer – it’s the quality that matters here, not the prestige!
Florian Wortmann, Division Head of CG Club of Gents
Savile Row by CG is very different from the main line; you could say it’s the icing on the cake. It should make people enthusiastic about the product again, about the unique, special look that is defined by everything from the right fit and the right buttons down to the right angle of the flap pockets. We do that by using higher quality fabrics from Italy and elaborate, handcrafted details. The price shouldn’t be a purchase criterion, but the composition of everything in its entirety. Your Own Party by CG is a separate subline in the NOS segment. The classic wedding suit, and also the special occasion suit are being interpreted in a new and fresh way. While in the past, especially at weddings, there was a demand for unusual models, these days it should be possible to wear a suit for more than just one occasion. And so at first glance, the suit models have more of a basic look.
being paired with suits. In terms of fabric, there’s a lot of linen and airy fabrics. Lurex and chenille yarns are adding highlights to the collections.
What are the key new trends awaiting us in the tailoring segment? Jackets are getting longer again and the lapels wider. Double-breasted suits are no longer only worn fastened, but also unfastened. The look is a lot more voluminous. And tank tops and rugby shirts are also celebrating their comeback and
What criteria do you use to select your partners? We only choose partners who have similar values to us and are on the same wavelength. Only then can we maintain our own authenticity and achieve joint success.
You are increasingly appealing to your target group via channels like Instagram and Facebook. To what extent does social media help you in establishing the brand? Digital media does, in fact, help us a lot. Especially for the new generation, the digital natives, we don’t need to talk about ‘would’ or ‘could’ here… If you don’t see these channels as a given, you’ll have no chance of survival. What kind of a role do influencers and their followers play for you? They are their own brands with their own community. If we’re a good fit, we all profit from it and can connect our communities and become stronger together.
CG.FASHION @CGCLUBOFGENTS
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COPENHAGEN FASHION SUMMIT
CLOTHES ARE EXPENSIVE, BUT HUMANS ARE CHEAP In May, “the world’s leading business event on sustainability in fashion”, the Copenhagen Fashion Summit, celebrated its tenth anniversary. Over two days, high-profile speakers debated what can be done to save humans, animals and the planet from the harm caused by the industry. The good news: the fact that change is necessary has been widely acknowledged and there is certainly no lack of good will, ambition and actual initiatives. However, it has also become clear why it is so difficult to change the ways of an entire industry – because the will to change needs to exist in every single part of the value chain, in each and every individual. TEXT BJÖRN LÜDTKE
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Apparently, consumers seem to be caring more about the effects of their consumption. But is that really true? After two days at the conference and talks about what could be done to save our planet, there seemed to be hope that conspicuous consumption and fast fashion may soon be phenomena of the past. But after a stroll through the streets of Copenhagen the day after, my illusions were well and truly dashed. Sure, there was the odd vintage store here and there, but on the whole I was seeing busy cashiers and packed rails and shelves of brand new merchandise. This is by no means an empirical observation but it is hard to imagine that this type of consumer behaviour will be changing in the next ten years. (“We have ten years to change” was a phrase I often heard at the event.)
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BRANDS HAVE TO ACT The problem is that: “Fashion consumption is irrational, it’s a social activity that gives us status. The strong drive to buy those sneakers is difficult to suppress; just focusing on the rational side is not enough to cure the insatiable appetite for
fashion,” as stated by HRH The Crown Princess of Denmark, who is patron of the Copenhagen Fashion Summit, in her opening speech. And, we don’t really want to know. The actress Julia Ormond (who starred in ‘Smilla’s Sense of Snow’) who is also a political activist asks: “The last piece you purchased — did you ask how it was made? Or where? There’s so much discomfort in us. We are not doing this because we are evil but because we are human, and we are not good when it comes to complexity. We need to make it simple for the consumer.” Quality and look are still the most important drivers for the consumers and even if we want to consume more sustainably, our options are limited. Journalist Maya Singer objects to the idea that the credit card is the customer’s best way to vote. “The argument is disingenuous from the brand side because there are not enough options.” Even if they are starting to show more interest, we cannot leave it in the hands of the consumers. Brands have the power to make a difference by re-thinking their value chain and delivering a better alternative to traditional
COPENHAGEN FASHION SUMMIT Nazma Akter, who is president or board member of several federations and committees (on the very right in the left picture), and Eva Kruse, initiator of the summit.
“EVERYBODY PROFITS. WE DON’T” Nazma Akter is president or board member of several federations and committees (look her up, it’s worth it!) and has been fighting to improve, in particular, women workers’ rights in the garment sector in Bangladesh for the past 34 years. She is one of the few representatives at the conference of the “other end” of the supply chain. “Ten years have passed, what progress have you seen? Salaries are increasing but not sufficiently. Whether Burberry or H&M, the margin goes to the corporations, our workers don’t get more. Everybody profits, we don’t. Clothes are expensive but humans are cheap.” Silence, applause. Above all, unease because everybody in the room knows that Akter is right but at the same time everybody also knows that there is only so much they can do – or want to do. The challenge: none of the stakeholders are on a level playing field. If brands in a price-sensitive market decided to pay higher wages and pass on the cost to the consumer, all other brands would need to go along too. If one brand decides not to, all the others lose their competitive edge.
Her Royal Highness The Crown Princess Mary of Denmark
Progress is being made, though. According to Helena Helmersson, COO of the H&M Group: “A lot has happened. Five years ago, we talked about minimum wages, now we’re talking about fair living wages on the factory level. The next level is the industry level.” We need a systemic change of the entire industry. (And we have only covered wages so far – what about the exploitation of animals and the environment?) RADICAL CHANGE CAN HAPPEN At this year’s conference, the terms ‘collaboration’, ‘partnership’ and ‘coalition’ might be among the most-used after ‘sustainability’. HRH suggests “looking to other industries for collaboration and sharing knowledge and business models.” How about the tech industry, where open source is a more common model than in fashion with all its exclusivity? To make a dramatic difference for our future, the big players need to get involved, scale is needed. A best practice example has become the collaboration between Parley and Adidas. Parley believes that plastic is a “design failure” and needs to be avoided as a virgin material at all costs. However, they want to make use of existing plastic by removing it from the oceans and recycling it (which, thus far, is more expensive than using virgin plastic). “It has proven that change can happen fast. Adidas made over a billion dollars with Parley in 2018. If they can afford to pay more, then everybody can. Share your knowledge.” Ideally, sustainability should be a non-competitive area, like infrastructure. Anna Gedda, Head of Sustainability at the H&M Group: “We shouldn’t be competing with what is the basis of our future existence.” But as long as sustainability measures are not included in the evaluation of a company this might remain fiction. François-Henri Pinault, Chairman and CEO, Kering: “Fashion companies are under pressure by shareholders.” The long-term aims of sustainability will only prevail over short-term profit goals when they are included in new KPIs. “Whatever gets measured, gets done.” A change of perspective is imperative: to perceive sustainability less as a challenge but as a business opportunity. In the words of Pinault: “Clients have expectations, they will buy from brands that reflect their own values, we need credibility.” Striving to deliver the better alternatives “gives the sense of purpose that modern companies need… We have everything we need to do, we just need the collective will.” And that means everybody, including you.
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goods. Eva Kruse, initiator of the summit, demands that we “provide the attractive choice”. Or, as Her Majesty puts it, make sustainability “a gift with purchase”.
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TRADESHOW INTERVIEWS – ANITA TILLMANN
BERLIN – STILL HOT OR NOT? The demise of the Berliner Salon briefly cast a dark cloud over a grieving fashion industry. But it was already clear that the end was nigh at the January edition in Kreuzberg’s St. Elisabeth Church last winter. The Salon will certainly be missed, but the fact that it’s no longer around ultimately won’t have too much of an impact on the tradeshows that take place during Berlin Fashion Week. We caught up with Anita Tillmann, Managing Partner of the Premium Group, for a conversation about Berlin as a trade fair location and the changes to the tradeshow business.
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INTERVIEW CYNTHIA BLASBERG
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Berlin Fashion Week’s tradeshow offer has always been a good reflection of the latest trends. And with its unique vibe and inspiration, the city of Berlin itself has contributed to this. But the rules are shifting. It’s not the retailers and manufacturers who are defining the trends on the shop floors, instead they are increasingly having to deliver what the end consumers are demanding. How can a tradeshow react to these changes and trends? The classic tradeshow business has changed fundamentally. The tradeshow product is no longer the collections alone. These days it’s more about the brand, budgets, emotions, activities and social media packages. That’s why we adapted the concept. After all, if the brand isn’t managing to appeal to visitors at the shows and impress and win them over with stories, key looks and ideas, they’ll have an even harder job in the showrooms or via Instagram posts.
Anita Tillmann, Managing Partner of the Premium Group
To what extent is that reflected in the Premium Group’s different tradeshow formats? It needs highlights, enthusiasm and ideas for the retail spaces. Bored sales staff at uninspired trade fair booths with fully packed clothing rails aren’t fun for anyone – neither for the buyers nor, if I’m honest, for us. It feels like the collections all have a very similar aesthetic. So the expectations on the brands are clear and the following questions need to be answered: what does the brand stand for? Why should I continue buying from the brand, or buy from it in the first place? What’s the history of the company? And finally: what is my margin like? Taking that as our starting point, we are providing inspiration at the show, for example, in the form of pop-up solutions and franchise concepts, also from the food and beauty industry. And it’s proving very popular.
Can you name any examples of such highlights? I mean brands like Alphatauri, whose 3D knitting machine can produce a tailormade knitted jumper in just 45 minutes. The company first attended our #FashionTech conference, where we exchanged ideas with them and came up with a concept for Premium. And then the 3D knitting machine was exhibited last July and celebrated its B2C premiere at KaDeWe this spring. Or also Spanish brand Ecoalf, which showcased a collection made of recycled plastic that’s reclaimed from the ocean. An art object installed at their stand and live talks with the founder and CEO Javier Goyeneche generated additional attention. Such innovations and ideas are what arouse interest and get the buyers excited. In January, Premium restructured the content of its tradeshows, shifting the
TRADESHOW INTERVIEWS – ANITA TILLMANN
NEW LOCATION The #FashionTech conference is relocating: on 4 July it will be taking place at the Festsaal Kreuzberg concert hall. Top speakers including Brian Grevy, CEO of Gant, Luisa Krogmann, founder & CEO of Aeyde and Aaron Levant from ComplexCon & Agenda will be taking to the stage to discuss topics ranging from e-commerce and street culture to digital business. WWW.FASHIONTECH.BERLIN
our instinct when it comes to trends is hugely important. It’s all in the mix.
Inspiration and business under one roof – that’s what Premium wants to offer exhibitors and visitors every season anew.
Premium Group, we have always asked ourselves one overarching question: what do we need to show retailers to ensure that they meet the growing needs of the end consumers? Which trends? Which brands? Which topics and what kind of innovations are concerning the industry and, above all, where? Who are the established players and who are the new ones? Sometimes we’re too fast and too hasty in some regards, and often one step ahead in others. But at the same time, we do our best to make sure that everyone taking part in our events really gets something out of them. That’s probably also the reason why we’re still around and successful. On the one hand, we work very analytically and data-driven, while on the other our social skills, i.e.
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focus on the dialogue between retailers and manufacturers: making it less about the collections themselves and more about key looks and brand stories. How has this concept gone down with exhibitors and visitors? After just one season we were already getting really good feedback. We already visit a lot of brands at their headquarters to understand what they’re about. And we also organise marketing and brand workshops and are in constant dialogue. There’s no replacement for face-to-face meetings and the more digital and fastpaced our business becomes, the more significant they will be. The entire ecosystem of fashion comes together in Berlin, from owners to marketing teams down to buyers and also designers. As the
Why does Berlin still have such a huge appeal? The buyers who come to Berlin want to be inspired and appealed to on an emotional level. I believe we should all make an effort to encourage interaction and not forget the fun side of it all in the process. That’s an integral part of our business after all – and Berlin, of all places, is particularly conducive to that. But we believe that it’s especially important to send the new generation of store assistants to Berlin. After all, before the end consumer can be inspired by a product, it’s important to motivate, train and emotionalise the sales assistants on the shop floor. In Berlin that works wonderfully. The feedback from the retailers who have taken that approach, including attending parties and off-site events, is extremely positive. Everyone profits from it in the long term.
Not only new collections, but also new brands: Visitors can look forward to discovering plenty of new inspiration at Premium Berlin.
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TRADESHOW INTERVIEWS – MUNICH FABRIC START
WELCOME TO THE CONTEMPORARY CLUB –
MUNICH FABRIC START AS A MODERN BUSINESS HUB From 3-5 September 2019, Munich Fabric Start is presenting a new attractive concept, which, together with the Bluezone, is sure to appeal to exhibitors and visitors alike. J’N’C spoke with Sebastian Klinder, Managing Director of the trade fair, Joachim Baumgartner, Trend Scout for Munich Fabric Start and Panos Sofianos, Denim Curator for Bluezone, about the highlights of the coming event, the pooling of common strengths and the many different demands and expectations placed on trade fairs. INTERVIEW CHERYLL MÜHLEN
The countdown to the next Munich Fabric Start has begun: what’s new for the visitors? Sebastian Klinder: Highlights like the trend seminar by Li Edel koort, but also exciting workshops, lectures in the Keyhouse, as well as a relaunch of the Blue Fest, which is being held on the Zenith site. But a unique highlight of the coming fair is definitely the launch of the sourcing area in the new hall 8.
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What’s the concept for the sourcing area? SK: We are doing without the classic trade fair booths and presentations and aiming to create a kind of co-working space atmosphere, rather than a trade fair vibe. That means there are no designated areas where the exhibitors present their wares in a classic way, and several areas where you can withdraw and discuss things, for example in catering areas or on terraces that have an almost park-like feel to them. So basically, a concentrated business atmosphere in a unique context, a little like a business club.
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SEBASTIAN KLINDER, Managing Director of Munich Fabric Start
Is that a reaction to the growing demands on the parts of the exhibitors and visitors? SK: It’s no longer enough to simply prepare a classic trade
fair format or create the structural framework for it. You have to ensure an element of surprise each season and always have something new to offer. The expectations placed on a trade fair by exhibitors and visitors have shifted radically over the last ten to fifteen years. That’s why we try to have the mindset of a host, rather than a classic trade fair organiser. We are convinced that listening, keeping up with the market, staying in dialogue with the exhibitors as well as the visitors, quick reactions, establishing additional formats or a new date, while also maintaining consistency and reliability, is the right recipe for a viable trade fair. At the end of the day we have to keep our promise to deliver quality. Keyword quality: materials have to fulfil so many demands these days, which is leading to constant new developments on the market. To what extent does Munich Fabric Start play a decisive role in this developmental process? SK: A prepress trade fair like ours can certainly deliver a high level of added value because it provides inspiration and incentives. We place high value on pushing forward innovation, sustainability and technology. For the visitors this also opens up new possibilities. There is a reason why the Keyhouse, which was initiated in September 2016, is such an important format for us, because it’s not about pure fashion tech anymore but also about new functional materials, innovative production processes, the fusion of fashion and technology and of course circularity. With the Keyhouse we try to create a think tank for inspiration and innovative topics. Naturally, that means we face the challenge of scouting out the latest developments and presenting them at our trade fair.
How does this change influence your work and that of the manufacturer? JB: Seen globally, the fashion industry simply hasn’t shown itself as truly transparent for the end consumer over the last twenty to forty years. But the consumer accumulates knowledge via other topics, is informed and interested and shaking up the entire industry more and more. Just how much the companies want, or should, indulge this curiosity, is naturally up to their individual philosophy, but there is certainly a major change happening. We can’t just change everything from one day to the next, that’s a fact. Despite this, the awareness of environmental topics and the consequences of environmentally damaging production methods is becoming increasingly clear. The following generation is playing a key role here of course, because they are growing up with a different awareness of the environment and perhaps they’ll be the ones who come up with the right solutions.
TRADESHOW INTERVIEWS – MUNICH FABRIC START
Nevertheless, do you have a trend prognosis for the coming season? JB: I don’t really think that fashion should or can be viewed exclusively in terms of trends. It’s more about a curated arrangement of tendencies and developments. We are already one step ahead of the idea of trends. Keyword: genderless. For example, it’s hard to describe materials as flowing or robust in terms of ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ because these entire concepts are breaking up. For the coming season we will be increasingly inspired by street and sportswear. That is certainly a long-term trend that was kicked off through ‘athleisure’ and ‘comfort-first’ and is claiming a growing segment of the market. It definitely won’t be disappearing any time soon. Why? JB: Because the mass market wants to dress comfortably, free of paradigms. Certainly, slightly fashionable, but squeezing yourself into something just because it’s a trend? That ship has sailed. In other words: fashion will become even more relaxed, styles that were previously popular will be broken up. We are experiencing an extreme liberation from things that have long been regarded as the status quo but aren’t anymore. The relevance of fashion is disappearing from many areas, and innovations are finding their way into the fashion industry. That’s very exciting. So how do you use this mindset to implement changes in the trend areas? JB: In close cooperation with our creative director Frank Junker and our creative team we try to pick up on different moods and create worlds where visitors can immerse themselves in themes, with tangible examples of how the fashion could look in the end. We are always observing that there is an increasing demand for support when it comes to the potential end result and in the first instance try to use our trend areas to provide the visitors with specific tools. In a nutshell: support when it comes to the collection creation and inspiration rolled into one. But on the other hand it shouldn’t be too concrete. Finding the right balance is a challenge.
The element of surprise: Munich Fabric Start is pooling all its strengths for its exhibitors and visitors.
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Let’s talk about the development of trends: Joachim, as a trend scout for Munich Fabric Start, where do the challenges lie for you when trying to offer the visitors an informative trend concept? Joachim Baumgartner: Well, no doubt it’s important to know right from the start that the meaning of the term ‘trend’ has changed so much compared to how it was perceived a few years ago. Propagating one colour or one material for the visitor simply JOACHIM BAUMGARTNER, Trend Scout for Munich Fabric Start won’t wash anymore, because both are simply building blocks of the overall whole. We work more with circular fashion concepts, in order to show what is happening in fashion and how blockchain works. The basis of a contemporary trend concept is an understanding of what is currently happening in the sectors: sustainability, innovation, high tech and fashion.
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TRADESHOW INTERVIEWS – MUNICH FABRIC START
Bluezone brings together the who’s who of the denim industry. At the panel talk, visitors can listen to the experts and engage in an active dialogue with them.
Panos, speaking of challenges: there are also a few concerning the denim market. But before we talk about the Bluezone and its current approach, can you name a few key trends for denim? Panos Sofianos: Well, we think that denim is becoming more practical. Consumer habits are changing, and fashion is becoming more functional and ethical – the first example that springs to mind is Fashion Revolution Day. So the shapes are becoming increasingly PANOS SOFIANOS, Denim Curator of Bluezone more practical and functional as well. Of course the commercially successful fits will continue to live on, but we foresee wider shapes, as well as the comeback of selvedge and vintage jeans. But everything is emerging together, meaning: there is no one particular trend. With the next Bluezone under the title ‘All Related’, we’ve embraced this movement which also means a movement of the textile manufacturers becoming more aware of their actions and the producers taking on the role of a brand – especially where the communication with the end consumer is concerned, but without interfering in retail structures. Everything is more connected, hence the title ‘all related’, including the consequences of actions taken or not taken. It’s all in equilibrium; it’s all connected.
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A very interesting aspect: how would you describe the development of the Bluezone with sustainable developments in mind? PS: First of all, sustainability has become an obsolete term for us.
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Why is that? PS: To us it’s just like with many other issues, like transparency and more controlled and responsible productions. Of course,
all this is included in the term sustainability but I think the word has been overused. Sustainability has changed a lot with the help of innovation. Bluezone has tried to be a leader in that direction from the very beginning. With our ReSOURCE area (formerly known as the Organic Selection) as well as the Keyhouse, we have established innovative platforms for a more responsible and environmental-friendly production and new material developments. Besides this, we offer diverse panel discussions and keynotes on this topic every season. Sustainability is more than a trend or a development: it’s a mindset. So, we encourage our customers to show more cutting-edge technologies and projects that can take denim to a new level. From an overall perspective, what should a contemporary trade fair format look like today? SK: I think that the industry will no longer be defined via product groups like it was, but rather product worlds – ideally the visitor will find a broad spectrum in Munich from which to source materials. Because when all segments can be presented on one site, it certainly offers great added value for visitors and exhibitors alike. The increasing pressure on our time, which affects us all, should be invested in the widest possible and best selected range of products offering maximum benefit. JB: Yes, exactly, it should be possible to grasp new inspiration, topics and innovations in a relatively short timeframe. PS: I would say that with Bluezone and Munich Fabric Start we are trying to skip the ordinary and implementing a more multidisciplinary approach. It’s a kind of mentality that I call ’greenovation’. We still look for the impossible and the unexpected because there is a huge amount of destruction happening all over the world. I think we see ourselves as more and more of a B2C platform because in a way the products and services offered at our show are passed on – as ethically and transparently as possible. MUNICHFABRICSTART.COM
TEXTILE TRENDS – IT’S A PATTERN
IT’S A PATTERN The coming seasons promise to be colourful, structured and wild – as you can see from the fabric trends by numerous ladies’ and menswear brands. Not only are wild mixing, micro-patterning and bright colours allowed, they are almost mandatory, while the denims are all about raw looks and monochrome blue tones.
Verhees
GRAPHIC NATURE Abstracted camouflage, alternative animal prints, ethnic patterns and graphic interpretations are taking a walk on the wild side and reminding us of indigenous art and natureinspired visuals. Fabrics including silk, cotton, poplin and jersey complete the all-round natural feel and round off the trend perfectly. Seidra Verhees
PHOTOS IMAXTREE
Lica
Liberty Fabrics Lica Lica Liberty Fabrics
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EXOTIC GARDENING Whether large-format or in small repeats, floral prints are not only defining womenswear in addition to the graphic nature theme, but also increasingly finding their way into the men’s world – and gradually taking over from the palm and Hawaiian motifs. The trend oscillates between elegant, feminine-romantic and expressively exotic and works best when paired with flowing materials.
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When it comes to traditional menswear, the ‘more is more’ approach seems to be holding sway these days – but only in careful doses. Suits are therefore experimenting with multiple tones of one colour – such as cool blue, for example. Several nuances are used within one design and, combined with microstructures, form a strong contrast to the striking patterns of other trends.
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ARTSY COMIC
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More art than pattern is the credo for another striking trend: playful patterns and doodles. Quite a playful look that has been edging its way into the fashion world for several seasons now and is proving increasingly popular – albeit primarily in womenswear.
SPICE IT UP Velcorex
Velcorex
The favourite fabric for the summer: linen! And this time the flax fabric is attracting all the right attention in the form of spice colours, including curry yellow, saffron red and pumpkin orange. But now even linen can now do more than just colour: we’re talking GOTS-certified fabrics with stretch and creaseresistant properties and a Tencel blend for more comfort.
TEXTILE TRENDS – IT’S A PATTERN
Velcorex
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NDL Naveena
NDL Naveena
Soorty
Farewell worn-out looks, it’s time to get back to the roots: as the denim industry is increasingly following the sustainable trend for reduced looks, the washes are reminiscent of vintage jeans and relying on a more monochrome colour palette, covering every thing from dark denim and classic blue jeans to light blue denim.
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WE LIKE IT RAW
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OPINION PIECE
MAGAZINES VS INFLUENCERS – COMPETITION OR COEXISTENCE? TEXT CHERYLL MÜHLEN
Back when I was starting my university studies in 2009, the media sector had only just begun its ongoing debate about whether or not print was dying out. A question that today, exactly ten years later, still hasn’t been answered, although there are definitely case studies that suggest the story doesn’t have a happy ending. But is it true? Is print on its way out? Not if you ask me. Of course, I’m the editor-in-chief of a print medium. How could I possibly say anything else? But in my work and my position as a digital native, I regularly try to view the development from a neutral perspective and see both side to the story. In my opinion, the actual question that needs to be asked is how print can face up to the new challenges in the near future and even grow from them.
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This year, J’N’C is celebrating its 20-year anniversary! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US! We are delighted to be celebrating this milestone birthday with you, our loyal readers, and aren’t afraid to admit that getting older isn’t easy. After all, just like in real life, a new generation is coming to the fore, who is smarter, savvier and able to adapt better and faster – simply because they are the ones holding the reins. And the ones who used to be setting the tone suddenly seem to have fallen by the wayside. Like helpless spectators, passively watching their influence slip away in slow motion. Unless, of course, they start participating and opening themselves up to change, the very engine that has been driving our industry for decades. But getting back to the actual problem, or rather to the all-important question: in today’s Instagram era, how can a print magazine stay relevant?
98
Print isn’t better; print is different. “In magazine pages, the eye is travelling first class; on Instagram, the eye is in virtual free fall,” is how Dazed co-founder Jefferson Hack recently summed up the difference in an article for System
Magazine. Do you agree with him? We are permanently exposed to a neverending deluge of online images, which we allow to race through our brain within seconds, before, using as few muscles as possible, reacting instantly with a double click, a swipe or a hand movement. If we want to find something in particular, we have to do a quick scan and only have stampsized thumbnails from which to differentiate the good content from the bad – all on a purely visual basis, of course. But a wellpositioned magazine, on the other hand, takes the reader by the hand, giving them a table of contents to help them navigate their way around. It has already filtered out, compiled and curated the best possible content. Regular columns and sections convey a feeling of familiarity, of structured content and visual guidance. This “first-class trip for the eyes” is also reflected in the images; the reader doesn’t have to zoom in to see them properly but can admire them in their entirety from a distance, one after another. If we skip a page by mistake, the content will still be there and hasn’t disappeared into the algorithm jungle of Instagram Explore. What I’m trying to say is that print isn’t necessarily better than Instagram et al., it’s just different. And still relevant. Perhaps even more relevant than ever before. It has merely developed into a luxury commodity that complements the daily Instagram business. We no longer need to see ourselves as the source, but as the hub where everything comes together. That’s why it’s completely feasible for Instagram and print media to coexist perfectly. And that’s why we are seeing this anniversary issue as a guide to how print can remain relevant in the future. Ultimately, however, it’s not only us – the magazines and the influencers – who have to be willing to work together, but also the brands. So, are you with us? #followforfollow
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