Berlin Tradeshow Gets Mixed Reactions

Bread and Butter, the Berlin tradeshow for premium streetwear brands, received mixed reactions from exhibitors. Much hype in the past has been attached to the directional fair, but this season it seemed as if it's sister exhibition in Barcelona stole the show.

Footflow for the event was down 35% and 60 per cent of buyers were German, as opposed to 30 per cent before Barcelona . Italian, French and UK buyers opted for the newness of the Spanish exhibition, where a mixture of new brands, warm weather and buzzing city made the trip a pleasant buying weekend in the ever-hectic fashion calendar. Berlin , by contrast, didn't have the international customer exhibitors needed for wider European distribution, and left many brands wondering as to the future of the tradeshow, when Barclona and Berlin continue showing with just two weeks between them.

Launching a new brand to only the German market, when two-thirds into the exhibition German buyers went to the Dusseldorf CPD fair, seemed, at best, a costly exercise. Premium, which tends to house more higher-end brands than B&B, kept the brands in place by having offered free space to image-making labels.

At Premium, brands such as Loomstate and Katharine E Hamnett received much buyer interest. Perhaps this tradeshow is the alternative answer to the B&B fair, where a denim hall, a sportwear and streetwear division and superior collection exhibition become so split, that sharing buyers with the Barcelona show dilutes what is meant to be a fashion forward tradeshow, offering a glimpse of what is directional for next season. After all, what use is labelling a show 'directional' when no one is there to witness it?