Designs on Berlin

These days, Vogue, Cosmopolitan and ID-magazine are full of glossy photographs depicting moody-looking models swathed in black, sporting garish, punk make-up. For today's fashion conscious, it's back to the eighties, whether in New York, London, or Paris.

Berlin may be a fast-moving, trendy place to visit, but it's not New York, and when it comes to fashion, not Paris or Milan either. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, however, the city has experienced a surge of creative energy that may help it earn back its once-held status as an international fashion capital.

At the turn of the century, designers centred around Hausvogteiplatz, just a stone's throw away from the upmarket Friedrichstrasse, produced some of Europe's most stylish fashions. Mostly Jewish, the industry was destroyed by the Nazis, along with the people that powered it. In a sign of growing interest in its fashion heritage, the city unveiled a plaque last year commemorating the area's contribution to a craft that in 1914 boasted 260 boutiques, 4,2000 designers and 50,000 tailors.

Today, Berlin fashion is streetwise, inspired by the surge in music, design and clubbing which took off in backyards shortly after the fall of the wall. Proud of having survived the turmoil of unification and inspired by the clash of two so very different realms, Berlin is facing the world with a newly-found self-confidence, its fashion attracting increasing international attention.

There are now seven fashion schools and 1,500 designers in the capital working for an industry worth 657 million marks ($ 283 million). Playing an important role in this development is fashion queen Vivienne Westwood, who started teaching at Berlin's University of Arts in 1993, and still does so. Westwood has a reputation for being tough, but her students are confident, hard-working - and opening shops.

Trends in Prenzlauer Berg

The Kastanienallee in Prenzlauer Berg may not be the King's Road in London, but it is well on its way to become the trendiest street for Berlin's fashion conscious. Here, Berlin's hottest fashion names can be found: Thatchers, Eisdieler, and Betty Bund.

On a hot, sticky afternoon, designer Betty Bund's modest shop is full of customers. Rocking slightly to the soft, electronic beat coming from a small hi-fi in a far corner, Bund declares Berlin fashion to be unique in the world. Here, she says, fashion is a combination of lifestyle and music. Her partner Francesco Lipari designed his latest collection "Electro Bund" while composing music under the same name. "Electro Bund", a new collection of trendy, brightly coloured clothing, is symbolic of the type of fashion to be found all over the city.

Berlin's designers generally tend to use a lot of colourful shiny materials, producing basic, wearable streetwear, often embellished with numerous side pockets, remnants of the days when practical clothing was important for living in a city with so many building sites. Berlin fashion is utilitarian, and often dress-to-sweat-wear, a reflection of its clubbing roots.

The average Berliner is still timid when it comes to fashion, says Bund. In a city with a relatively young fashion scene, self-assurance is rare and so is risk-taking. Even in areas such as Mitte, the old centre of Berlin, and Prenzlauer Berg, with their trendy cafes and 70s style, retro-chic clubs, certain unwritten fashion rules are still not to be broken.

One exception is "Emulgator", three young fashion designers situated in a former bakery in Prenzlauer Berg. They are well known for their rather unique opinion on what to wear, including a collection of hats made to look like a spiky, punk hairstyle, white motorbike trousers with neon green padding, and a penchant for incorporating folkloric motifs from the Alps. Nevertheless, Emulgator is becoming increasingly well-known and popular, not only among Berlin's more fashion conscious generation but also outside the city.

Whether Eisdieler or Thatchers, Berlin's expanding fashiion scene represents an aspect of Berlin which no other European capital matches: the pace of its architectural and social change. Today, the results of the city's creative fashion minds appear softer, and less utilitarian - suggesting that Berlin may well be maturing.

If anything, the city has become more sophisticated. Mitte, the place to be seen in current-day Berlin, attracts designers and gallery owners, and in the meantime, numerous tourists too. An increasing number of the more trendy fashion designers are leaving the area, moving to the neighbouring district of Prenzlauer Berg, drawn by the area's diversity.

Berlin's designers, well aware of the city's fashion heritage are looking to the future, not to the past and are selling internationally. Bund, who presented her first Berlin collection four years ago, already sells in Stockholm, Copenhagen and Barcelona. Thatchers sells in Tokyo, Lille and Paris. Other designers are following suit. Slowed down by decades of war and separation, Berlin is catching up on the fashion scene, with all the signs pointing towards commercial success.