Ten-Year Anniversary

A Year nni ersary

To mark the tenth anniversary of the Premium Berlin, Anita Tillmann and Norberg Tillman are inviting everybody back to the spot where it all began. Celebrations with media, exhibitors and visitors are to take place in the tunnel. style in progress interviewed Anita Tillmann.

Interview: Martina Müllner. Photos: Premium, Jürgen Schabes

What would the Premium like to have for its tenth anniversary?

Anita Tillmann: A successful event, a tradeshow that attracts a lot of visitors and that makes our exhibitors happy. Because, at the end of the day, we are a service provider and it's our job to make the show good. If we do our job well, then we can be satisfied with ourselves.

Are there going to be events and specials for the anniversary?

Basically, as I said, it's our job to make the show good proving to our international audience that we have the best service. But, of course, we'll also be celebrating. We're having a party at the spot where it all began: in the underground train tunnel at Potsdamer Platz. In addition, we'll be launching limited editions with a handful of selected exhibitors. These can then only be ordered at the Premium.

What milestones have you had in the last ten years?

There were a lot, certainly buying the Station-Berlin property in Luckenwalder Strasse as this has opened up completely new horizons for us. Also very important was establishing the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Berlin through the IMG who, of course, we advised. It was the first time that a Fashion Week took place at the same time as the major tradeshows worldwide - and so an important première. Then, of course, the launch of the F95 store which is more or less an extension of the Premium and which first taught many dealers the importance of the Premium approach: We curate fresh collections every season, look all over the world for the best markets for our exhibitor portfolio. This work is very similar to a retailers - just that a shop owner can't be out and about as much as we can. This is our promise to dealers: We look all over the world for the best and most exciting things and bring them back to Germany. What a deal! I wish more dealers could see, appreciate and reward all this effort - by staying in Berlin a day longer for example and taking the time to immerse themselves in this selection.

Were there any critical moments in the last ten years?

Yes, of course, we're not perfect. But we do try to make our mistakes just the once - and quickly learn from them. Looking back, I would say that most of our mistakes were in being too fast, we were ahead of our time. So, it's perhaps a blessing in disguise that the start of the Panorama

Berlin as the home town of Premium: The concept has proved to be a good one.

- we advised on the concept for this - has had to be postponed due to circumstances beyond our control. I'm sure the time is ripe for the market to accept the new tradeshow. Three years ago, when we first started thinking about the Panorama, the market possibly might not have been as ready for it. So, every cloud has a silver lining.

The tradeshow has matured over the ten years: It's not the agency stands that call the shots anymore, it's the brands themselves...

Ultimately, this is a natural development which says a lot for the strength of the show: In the past, many agencies did a lot of the groundwork for their brands so to speak, proving with these joint stands that the Berlin tradeshow is worth it. Now the brands realise how important Berlin is and the agencies, of course, prefer the companies to book directly. Nevertheless, a good relationship with agencies is very important to us because the agencies in the premium segment are the industry's backbone. If a brand has an established agent, dealers have confidence - and then you can become sustainable as a brand on the German-speaking market.

What importance will Berlin still have and what role does the Premium assign itself in the tradeshow events?

I believe that having such an extensive range only does Berlin's prominence good. With the Premium, the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, Bread & Butter and Panorama, the location of the tradeshow stands on four solid pillars, I don't think you can honestly question the importance of Berlin or these events at all. Added to this are a number of side events and other events that enrich the tradeshow. Berlin is the only city in Germany that has any significance in the fashion business on an international level.

Premium International Fashion

Trade Show celebrated its launch in 2003, now nearly 900 brands and around 1,400 collections showcase at the Premium Berlin today. The dates for the anniversary events: 15th - 17th January 2013. www.premiumexhibitions.com

The Denim Hunter

Indiana Jones would turn

Brit Eaton is considered to be the best denim hunter in the world. His often adventurous search for vintage jeans leads him to the most remote of places in underground mines and shafts. During a quick stopover in New Jersey, the ambitious American spoke about his life as a "fashion archaeologist."

Text: Odessa Legemah. Photos: Brit Eaton

Your career is extraordinary and quite multifaceted: You are being thrown in jail in Greece, drove taxi in Madison and sold ice cream beaches on the north sea. How did you find your way into the fashion business by hunting denim?

I guess I just have a vivid imagination that sees potential in things a lot of people would pass over or discard as worthless. Now, when I go on buying trips, I always say "I'm searching for age but I'll settle for charac

pale

ter". So I piled up hundreds of thousands of cool looking old vintage workwear clothes and the fashion companies started to hear about the collection and come visit me. From there, word of mouth led me to more and more success both on the buying end and on the selling end. For me, I get a huge thrill from finding something valuable and then there is also a lot of satisfaction in knowing my long term clients so well that, sometimes just seconds after I discover something

amazing, I have already decided who is probably going to love the item the best.

Many people do not even know the term "Denim Hunter". How would you describe your profession?

One part luck, one part skill, one part determination, one part belief and a whole lot of risking my neck!

Your company is called Carpe Denim and you sell pieces to diverse clients as Hollywood wardrobe departments, private collectors, and companies as Levi's, Ralph Lauren, the Gap and Dickies. Why is the industry fascinated with vintage denim?

I have said this before and I will say it again: every single pair of jeans fades in a unique manner; they are unique like snowflakes and like artwork to guys like me as well as designers. Even though I have looked at millions of jeans over the years, I still find details and patterns I have never seen before, especially with the super early 1860's-1880's stuff that I have gotten better and better at hunting down as my skills and interests have increased. Ironically, it 1997 I was excited if I found a pair of jeans from 1970 , but now it's 2012 and it takes jeans older than 1940 to give me the same level of excitement. I guess this is the same with any collector. As you learn more, you want the best and now, 20 years since I first learned of old jeans having value, it takes dynamite to get me high. So, to sum up the answer to this question: the fashion industries fascination with old denim is the same as mine. Each jean tells a unique story and has a unique history, and one could say a jean wears its history on itself. You see a paint splotch or an old repair and you wonder how that came to pass? So, life is more interesting when we see things that we have never seen before, and vintage denim satisfies the basic human need to find joy in seeing things that we have never before seen

Where do you find the right spots to explore your vintage pieces?

By finding millions of WRONG spots over the last 20 year !

As fashion archaeologist do you sometimes feel like a time traveller?

I would respond to this by saying if you want to learn how the romans lived their lives, then try to act like a roman and if you want to find something left behind by the romans, go to where the romans lived and think like a roman thought… The journey for me in my denim hunter development has been a very broad and culturally educational one. I literally have found things simply because I always try to put myself in the shoes of people that have gone before me and, just like an actor immersing themselves in a role, when

Ready sorted. Especially rare pieces fetch top dollar at the Rose Bowl Market in Pasadena.

you make the mental connection between now and then, you find things beyond imagine

You once said that you are the best in this country finding vintage denim, maybe the best worldwide. Do you have international competitors in this field?

Honestly, I don’t consider anyone a competitor anymore. In my opinion, I have won the denim olympics 20 years in a row and now I am semi-retired and sit on the global denim seekers advisory commitee !...obviously, joking here, but the truth is that people I used to think of as a competitors I now consider collaborators.....either that or they are not around anymore. This business has a karma to it that eventually shakes off anyone but the purists. I used to get jealous and motivated if someone else had a major score and found a valuable pair of jeans, but I have come to realize that in order to keep my "hobby and passion" globally relevant, it is good for the whole industry when more people get into the denim seeking business.

What does a typical day look like in the life of Brit Eaton?

There is no such thing as a "normal" day in my life. I am the most aggressively A.D.D. guy you'll ever meet, I have been fortunate enough that my denim addiction disease has led me into a lifestyle where I my A.D.D. is pacified by having the freedom to pursue whatever daily dream I might dream up to do on any given day.

Are you interested in fashion design?

Of course, but in all honesty, only in the way it affects my business. Here is no doubt in my mind that if jeans one day go completely out of style, the value of my collection will be decimated...so, a perfect Brit Eaton fashion world in 2013 would look like a us mining town photo from the 1920s!

There are various categories and classifications for the earliest types of jeans. How do you learn "denim hunting".

Step A: go to the second hand store, buy a pair of jeans you think looks old, come home and find out they are worthless; Step B: ...go back to the store and try again. Repeat this process over and over until you are completely broke...by this point, you should have the whole thing figured out !

Thank you for speaking with us!

Photos: Dörte Haupt, www.doertehaupt.de Styling & Production: so wow - Agi Habryka, www.sowow.de Models: Boris, Klas, Lars (www.sowow.de) and Mo, the dog Illustrations/Artwork: Conny Dreher, www.atelierconradi.de Special thanks to: Frontlineshop