Premium Berlin - Now Showroom among exhibitors

Premium Tradeshow is also currently at large as part of the ongoing Berlin Fashion Week (18-20/01/2012). If visiting, drop by Hall 7N, booth H7, C49. It's the Greek mission by Now Showroom featuring Sotiris Georgiou's upcoming collection and limited edition tees by Digitaria. Worth checking out.
Booth snapshot stolen from here.
Sotiris Georgiou
Digitaria

Premium Berlin A/W 2010 - the aftermath

Premium, part of Berlin Fashion Week, has released the official visitors stats for it's A/W 2010 exhibition. We've been looking forward to that. You see we can no longer count on Bread and Butter for this piece of info since last season's announcement that it won't be mentioning such data from now on, a symbolic move to show it's all about quality, not quantity.

Anita Tillmann, Managing Director of Premium Exhibtions summarized this season's performance: "We’re more than satisfied. We started with 70 designers 15 seasons ago in January 2003. We now have well over 900 collections from the Premium segment, which we present in our location STATION-Berlin. The resilience and hard work in establishing Berlin as a fashion city have paid off and we have always remained true to our concept of putting quality before quantity.PREMIUM F/W 2010/11 was the most successful event to date with 41,807 international visits".

On Premium's Symposium 'Fashion Blogs - Hype or Future?' she commented: "The symposium was packed – it was a really hot draw".

Next Premium dates: Spring/Summer 2011, July 7 – 9, 2010.

Good stuff Berlin.

Blogger panel @ Premium, the clip

On Fashionblogs from Mary Scherpe on Vimeo.

Since the announcement of a bloggers' panel talk at Premium exhibition in Berlin, I've been looking forward to a report of what finally went on. The name of Suzy Menkes amongst other important speakers had me all excited about this. I thought it would be really interesting to see what a print fashion journalism representative of her status has to say on blogs and their place in fashion today. Coming across this clip at IFB was as close as I got, but it's worth watching.

Blogger panel @ Premium, Berlin

I've received this notice and I'm kicking myself I didn't book that ticket to Berlin this season. I know (frozen) Berlin is reading so chuck on something warm and go attend this on my behalf:

PREMIUM SYMPOSIUM Fall/Winter 2010/11
BLOGGER PANEL: FASHION BLOGS – HYPE OR FUTURE?

Suzy Menkes: “The world changed, when fashion instead of being a monologue, became aconversation. And that's never going to stop.“

For the seventh time running, the PREMIUM SYMPOSIUM is inviting luminaries from the international fashion industry to talk about themes and trends that are important to the business.

The panel will be moderated by Mary Scherpe (blogs: “Stil in Berlin”, “Quite Contrary”) who will lead a discussion on the significance of fashion blogs and their future, fashion reporting in print and online media, and the actual communication between media and users.

Guests:
Suzy Menkes, International Herald Tribune (via Video)
Imran Amed, Business of Fashion
Markus Luft, Gala Germany
Christoph Amend, ZEITmagazin
Sven Schöne, K-MB Agency for Brand Communication GmbH
Annette Weber, InStyle Germany (tbc)

BLOGGER PANEL: FASHION BLOGS – HYPE OR FUTURE?
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2010
2 pm
PREMIUM AUDITORIUM
STATION-Berlin 1st floor
Luckenwalder Strasse 4 – 610963 Berlin

For accreditation - please send an email to: symposium@premiumexhibitions.com

.......................................................................

- Here's a glimpse of how Premium was for me last season.

Chie Mihara @ Premium

Amongst the very loud names participating at Premium Exhibition, was that of shoe designer Chie Mihara. Chie, was born in Porto Alegre Brazil to Japanese parents and studied in Japan and New York before finally deciding that Spain was the place to be.

Launched her personal line in 2001 which is as inspiring as the fact that she created a family and is currently a mother of three!

Chie was not there herself, her German distributors though were so kind as to take me through the winter and next summer collection and give me her email. So in the end, here's Chie taking this blog's readers through her work:

Alecca: What shall we expect from you this winter?
Chie: I thought we need to laugh a bit, to have some humor in these times, without it the product has no appealing and therefore no success… So, my winter collection is all about fun and uniqueness. Things you don’t see anywhere, details nobody dares at this moment… Things that make you fall in love…

Because obviously all our closets are full of clothes and shoes, bags, eyeglasses…and why need more? That’s the trick!! Yes, you have to make “that” product women will say “I need to have it”!!! And being a woman these times is really a plus, at least from my point of view… I can perfectly understand women’s needs and what makes us crazy!!

A: What was the inspiration behind the collection?
C: - Late thirties styles, lot’s of suede and feminine details.
- Rounded toes with inside platform and big platforms too… Curvy heels, straight…but voluminous shapes.

A: Have you got a personal favourite design?
C: I have many favorites, will send pictures. (pictures featured here)

A: For which type of woman would you say you design?
C: For the woman with sensibility and in search for something special and different.
A: A simple advice for Alecca Rox readers?
C: Buy a quality and a very good fitting shoe, even if that’s a bit more costly, you will notice a big difference! Because behind the scenes, there are hundreds of people caring for the smallest detail to make a good and long lasting shoe.

*Special thanks to Chie Mihara, she truly is wonderful!*

--> You can browse and shop the current collection, here.

Discovering Darimeya

Well Peaches Geldof, Keisha from the Sugababes and Kate Moss have done it first, a long time ago. Better late than never, I present you Darimeya, based in London and established in 2003.

In Premium, I had the chance to meet the Korean designer behind the brand, Nicky Lee Inthsorn. To my surprise, her assistant was Greek, Fragiski (pictured right).

The collection is a sweet mix of short dresses, so special they caught my eye from the other side of the room. Nicky gave me a mini interview, especially for you:

Alecca: What is the theme of your collection?
Nicky: (smiles) Alice in Wonderland! The inspiration comes so naturally each time. My last collection was themed "Cupcake" after someone brought over some delicious cupcakes in the office.

A: What fabrics do you use?
N: I use silk-satin, soft jersey and mixes of wool. Pure wool gives you knots after washing so I prefer fabrics that are a mix of wool and acrylic. I decorate with buttons, frills and lace. I also do my own prints.

A: Isn't that expensive? Don't you get copied?
N: It is, but we do our best to keep our prices to affordable levels. We sell in Topshop basement you know. Yes we get copied. At the moment we are in court with three companies. One way of avoiding copy-cats is by placing our logo discreetly on every print (see pictures).

A: Do you sell anywhere in Greece?
N: Yes we do! (she showed me a short list, I noted "Lalika" in Athens and "Nati-Mati" in Thessaloniki)

However, you can check out Darimeya online too, here. The prices are affordable indeed and from time to time there are some yummy sales on.

Thank you Nicky & Fragiski, it was a pleasure;)

Exhibition...maze

The exhibition sign could not have made it any clearer: girls and boys ...and what seperates them.

Entering Premium

Images from Premium, Berlin. Premium was an exhibition of up-market firms, showing collections for SS 10. Amongst brands I came across were Burlington, DKNY, JC/DC, Nice Things, French Connection and Sooo...! by Katerina Alexandraki. Details & discoveries, in posts to follow.

I am back

Or Ich bin zurück if you like. Forgot you not. It's just that so much was happenning in so little time, I had to save posting for my return. And here I am with tons of material to share, really soon.

In the meantime, this is a photo taken outside Premium exhibition in Luckenwalder Strasse. I was lucky enough to be sharing this experience with two seriously creative people, fashion designer Dimitris Kaidantzis and costume designer Marli Aleiferi. The first was there charging his baterries before diving into his SS 10 collection and the second had just finished the filming of the Greek movie "Four Black Costumes" by Renos Charalambidis and was escaping. This is so fresh, will tell you all about it in a future post.

Hummel was having this very clever promo, taking pictures of visitors infront of this huge jacket worn on a street sign. Agreeing to have your pic taken meant 30% off your next purchase, but we did it anyway 'cause the jacket was so imposing and also the promoter was fun.

-Man, you can dress a small team with all this fabric...
-He! Indeed. You can dress it using the fabric for the hoodie alone! Now smile.