Pants to Poverty Founder, Ben Ramsden, on Berlin Fashion week…
If anyone has ever been to Berlin, they’ll know that going there to sell the world’s greatest Pants to some of Europe’s coolest retailers is always going to be a great thing. We were showing at the Key To trade show and last time I was there was in October 2009 when the wind and the ice dominated the city and even then it was an amazing trip, this time the sun, heat and magnificence of our SS11 collections got me even more excited!
After a slightly dodgy start, when Easyjet cancelled my flight and put me up in the Hilton (yes, OK, so not all bad!) I just about managed to make it onto a flight to Hamburg instead of Berlin and, with some new friends from Lee Jeans and the Pure trade show, we scrambled into a taxi and 3 hours of delicious pants talk later I jumped out of the cab 30 minutes late for my talk at the Key to Academy. Sweating, weighed down by bags, unwashed and still wearing my contacts from the day before, I bounced into the dome where there were 30 or so gorgeous Berliners were waiting to hear from me about Press Actions. As would be expected with the “luck” I was having with my journey, neither my laptop nor the internet was working and so the crowd were treated to a “from the hip” journey through the world of pants from grain to groin and into the media. What I thought was a completely random and totally abstract ramble for an hour or so from me was, however, very informative and exciting apparently… so I just about ,managed to pull it off. A good, if not slightly tempestuous start!
Half an hour later, I’d set the stand up (mostly), dumped my bags off at the hostel and after a quick shower I jumped on a train to head down to Bread And Butter, Europe’s biggest fashion trade show to watch the footie based at the Tempelhoff – Nazi Berlin’s old airport and the birthplace of air traffic control. I’d heard alot about the magnificence of the event and so when I got there and was asked to pay 50 Euros for the pleasure of coming I was slightly disappointed. Fortunately though, the lovely girl on the ticket booth not only snuck me under the eyes of her supervisor, but she also let me in for free.. As she used our gorgeous image of Rapul as her screen saver! Amazing!
Once in, I met up with friends and took a whirlwind tour of the show. Massive is an understatement with huge festival tents spread along the old runways and a huge football stadium set up for the football. Inside the huge hangers were thousands of stands of the world’s biggest brands. As it was late in the day though they were all closed and had security protecting them, however, I of course managed to dart my way through their barricades and check out the competition.. Bjorn Borg, Calvin Klein… all of them were there and none of them were very exciting with the only thing characterising their stands as having nothing fresh and lots of money spent on them! I went there expecting to be intimidated, and left feeling motivated… Bjorn borg’s stand looked like they had ripped off our flickr pages!!
After Germany’s spanking by the Spaniards and the funny scenes created by the hispanic and Germanic fashionistas, it was time to get ready for the opening of the Key to and so, fairly late, I returned to my hostel where I was sharing a room with Gav, founder of the glorious THTC.
The Key to is a fantastic gathering of some of the greatest sustainable brands out there.. THTC, Komodo, Choolips, Itsus, Terraplana and so many more. Our stand was rammed pretty much constantly throughout the day and as it drew to a close I’d received a magnificent £3.5k order from Anna at Miljoklon in Sweden which totally made my day. The day then ended up with a gorgeous catwalk of all the brandes at the show culminating in a resplendent display of our summer collection!
Mark from Komodo then invited us over to the launch party of a new gorgeous SuperDry store in Berlin where we not only partied in true pants style but also met some really great people with whom we are hatching some very special plans! Watch this space!
Day 2 arrived with a slight bump after the late night before but soon accelerated into sales patter and orders (most notably with Laura from
Ebenberg – the greatest shop in Vienna!) culminating in the delivery of one of my main goals in coming over to Germany… getting on board a new sales agency –
Good True Beautiful – headed up by Christoph Dahn. Back in the 80s, Christoph launched Calvin Klein in Germany and more recently built
Kuyihiinto a massive brand there. We’re very excited to be working with him and his team – Severine and Kathrin!
That night, Severine, Kathrin, Gav and friends from Ebenberg and Choolips went off to celebrate at a great beach bar just nestled behind the berlin wall called yaam – very cool, very Berlin, and very late… but essential team building!
Saturday arrived and while we were still partying but soon enough the Key to opened up for the public day where I sold a hundred or so pairs of pants to refund the cost of the stand and get to know some German consumers… they too love great pants! ;) The next piece of the puzzle then came together with a meeting with Sabine, founder of SIMBIOS EINS who is going to be coordinating all of our communications work in Germany. Not only has she met with our farmer groups and is utterly dedicated to ensuring that good people can wear great pants but she is an expert in PR in Germany and has some very very exciting ideas up her sleeve! We really look forward to working with her!
At 5pm everything was shut down, packed up and put in storage and we all headed off for a siesta before the gran finale Key to party. Phenomenal is probably an understatement… I’d best leave it there! The next day was a day of sunshine, riverside walks and reflection on the past few days manic pants action in Berlin. Things are really working. The pants are beautiful, inexpensive and we’re working with some great people who really get our stunning story and its importance for fashion. It’s going to be a very exciting year ahead for our friends in Germany… I cant wait!
She says “During my time working in fashion, I have been constantly aware of how ‘fast fashion’ in particular, has contributed to damaging the planet and also the unethical use of cheap labor in some developing countries. I am wishing to pursue my goals in promoting ethical, sustainable and fair trade fashion. Taking part in this Big-pants project is ever so exciting for me and is a precious opportunity to be involved in such a worthwhile campaign. Hopefully, this project will help to raise further awareness of moral ethics and social responsibility within the fashion industry and its consumers.”
