Bread & Butter at Berlin Fashion Week

The Bread & Butter trade show at Berlin Fashion Week demonstrates the importance of the craft behind the garment. The emphasis on heritage, bespoke tailoring and quality was apparent even within the retail environments and visual merchandising. One of the reoccurring interior design elements of the show was reminiscent of classic style Swiss chalets, featuring excessive amounts of animal hides, piles of chopped wood and mounted animal horns. In keeping with this theme, Bread & Butter present a “new gentleman” trend, full of lumberjack shirts, leather boots and thick knit jumper and hats.

The desire to get back to nature reappears in much of the outerwear, where there is an emphasis on the functionality of the clothing. Instead of focusing on aesthetics, as one might expect at fashion shows, clothes are displayed and marketed based on the quality. There is also a resurgence in the parka jacket, prizing wearabilty over glamour. It appears that, in general, there is a move towards producing fashion that is functional in everyday life.

This return to a “back to basics” ideology could be an attempt to get back to a simpler life, one that existed before the technological revolution. Modern life is driven by money and material and these collections suggest a rejection of such a lifestyle and promote a quieter one in the Swiss mountains. However, being that the fashion industry is based entirely on commercial turn-over and materialism, it is questionable as to how far this message extends.

Credits
1. Image courtesy of Bread & Butter

Baibin Downey-Orr