Visible Mending Exhibition during the DFD
DATE
22.07.2021
Düsseldorf is known as a city that loves fashion. Königsallee, or Kö as the locals say, located at the heart of the city, is a centre for fashion lovers and hosts almost every international designer name you could think of.
Over the years the city became an important location for B2B business. Starting in 1949, while Berlin, the former German fashion hub laid in ruins, the city of Düsseldorf decided to host the world’s first fashion fair for retailers, coordinated by a trade show organizer Igedo. Düsseldorf’s fashion fair reached its peak in 1999, as the trade fair was considered the largest, and best-selling of its kind on the international stage and offshoots being established in Hong Kong and Moscow. The business with dresses and accessories developed into one of the main economic pillars of the city’s industry. Now, Düsseldorf host multiple major fashion events and fairs each year and is home to over 600 fashion showrooms.
Düsseldorf Fashion Days, also known as DFD, is one of the city’s recent highlights. This year the event is expanding and adding a “Festival Edition” which runs from July 21st till the 28th. The Düsseldorf Fashion Days, originally dedicated to B2B activities of trade fairs and showrooms, will be accompanied by numerous activities also for the B2C community. In the city center 120 brands, retailers, hotels, and galleries have signed up to celebrate fashion, art and creativity together. The city will be buzzing with life: 600 showrooms, networking events, artistically staged shop windows and the first issue of its own DFD Magazine will be presented to the public. In addition, from July 22 to 25, pop-up shop windows will set the scene at Schadowplatz and the surrounding Königsallee. On Saturday, July 24, featuring the so-called Shopping Day with extended opening hours until 10 pm. The crowning finale of the Shopping Day will be an artistically staged light and water projection show that visitors can marvel at along Königsallee and the Kö-Bogen as dusk falls.
Furthermore, from July 23 to 25th the new Strike a Pose – a Festival for Fashion, Art and Style. 15 art galleries from Düsseldorf, Cologne and Bonn will showcase collaborations between artists, designers and labels from the Rhineland art and fashion scene. The festival center is the Museum K21 of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen with presentations from both areas as well as accompanying talks on the topics of sustainability, fair fashion and entrepreneurship.
© Andreas Endermann
The KomKuk Fenster project has also joined the Düsseldorf Fashion Days and provides a space to bring fashion closer to the community. The project originally started in 2020 by the Düsseldorf Economic Development Agency, with the slogan “The best place is a window seat”. Local creative professionals are given the opportunity to present themselves and their products in a real shop window for a month at a time – centrally located on the lively Lorettostraße in Düsseldorf-Unterbilk, Friedrich 2468 in Friedrichstraße and Arkadia in Marktplatz. The KomKuk Fenster project is like an ever-changing city art exhibition where local creative businesses can come closer to their clients in a fun and non-committal way.
Change Room’s venture, Repair Rebels, a platform for textile and shoe repairs and alterations, was given the opportunity to participate in the Dusseldorf Fashion Days event by creating a repair exhibition at the KomKuk Fenster at Loretto 9 co-working and event space.
With a motto “Love Your Favorites”, Repair Rebels window installation is aimed to promote more conscious consumption of fashion and celebrates the beauty of imperfections. Mending is a form of art. It requires great attention to detail, creativity, and a lot of patience. Thus, once repaired, even fast fashion becomes slow and even knockoffs become originals. Hanging on the washing- line, visitors can enjoy beautifully worn out and stitched jeans, creatively repaired pullovers and socks, as well as view a collection of books and mending tools.
We were very happy to receive support from regional and national mending artists.
One of the contributors to the Repair Rebels KomKuk Fenster is Ekaterina Haak, a local mending artist from Essen. Although Ekaterina now specializes in tiny colorful embroidery to either repair or enhance the garment, her path started with mending. She started embroidering directly on stained t-shirts to cover the stains and just later found out that what she did actually has a name – “visible mending”. Ekaterina says that she sees her embroideries as a source of inspiration for beginners as well as mending professionals and is happy about every piece of fabric that stays in use a bit longer due to her creative touch.
For a long time, we have been following the inspiring work of Konfekt Textilerepair, so we were very happy that Aleksandra Zdravković, the person behind Konfekt Textilerepair, also joined our repair exhibition and sent a package from Hamburg containing some of her favorite pieces.
Aleksandra first started repairing clothes for a fashion rental company Räubersachen in the summer of 2016. As a fashion designer by education, she always had a strong affinity for small details in clothing and fabrics. Becoming a mother, motivated her to enrich this affinity with more purpose and appreciation. She loves the challenge of choosing repair techniques and yarns that both preserve the functionality of the original garment and highlight the supposed flaw as something beautiful. For Aleksandra, visible mending is a very fulfilling way to participate in today’s fashion industry, just with more purpose and responsibility.
If you will happen to be in Düsseldorf during the months of July and August, pass by the Loretto 9 and check out yourself the Repair Rebels window installation!
#icareirepair #RepairRebels #DFD21
