The first edition of the 202030 – THE BERLIN FASHION SUMMIT, which took place as part of the Berlin Fashion Week from 21-24 January 2021, successfully encouraged change in the fashion industry and inspired rethinking the future of fashion: with almost 1500 registered participants from all over the world, including high-class professionals and an active audience contributing to the varied format via live chat. Participants came from places like France, the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, the United States, India and Brazil, just to name a few.

202030 - The Berlin Fashion Summit is designed to be(come) a cross-disciplinary platform, which enables avantgarde creatives, critical grassroot protagonists and industry stakeholders to work together. We see the challenge in connecting and finding solutions for the needs of diverse fashion industries, consumer cultures, innovation-driven sustainability and the tech movement. By involving experts from different disciplines, the 202030 – The Berlin Fashion Summit is aiming to stimulate a visionary, creative and encouraging dialogue. Through a multi-staged process, we aim to bridge existing innovations with the industry and envision concrete tangible connections and solutions for a more sustainable future of fashion.

International and local experts and innovators from fashion, science, business, education, politics, art & tech were invited to take part in the kick-off event of 202030 – The Berlin Fashion Summit dialogue, which was divided in 3 parts:

The POP UP THINK TANK was not public and served as the first experimental and preparational part. It consisted of three top-notch workshops, discussing systemically relevant questions from different points of view – by envisioning the future of #1 Fashion Culture, #2 Fashion Economy and #3 Fashion Productitself.

The PRE SUMMIT was public and included the policy lab, where policy makers from the Embassy of the Kingdom of Netherlands and representatives of the Green Button presented their best practices of creating an open dialogue with stakeholders of the civil society and industry.

The SUMMIT served as the main public part and opened up the dialogue to a broader audience. Each summit day highlighted one of the preceding topics #1 fashion culture, #2 fashion economy and #3 fashion product. Each workshop host presented the outcomes of the Pop Up Think Tank, including recommendations for players of the industry. Furthermore, inspirational keynotes were held, followed by demonstrations and presentations of best practices. A closing panel wrapped up the insights of each day and provoked progressive solutions and guidelines for future operations of the fashion industry.

All parts of the 202030 Berlin Fashion Summit are dedicated to critically and constructively reflect the current fashion systems in a contextual threefold approach, starting from the societal level to the organisational & structural level down to the product level. By reflecting on the fashion system from different perspectives, we are able to envision and encourage a future global / glocal fashion ecosystem, in which all three systemic dimensions of culture, economy and product are well interconnected and aligned towards a common goal:
To build a truly holistic sustainable fashion system aiming for the vision of an allover positive impact on society, environment and economy by 2030 at the latest.

In den öffentlichen Beiträgen wurde deutlich, dass die Mode der Zukunft gefeiert und nicht unter “Schuld und Scham” begraben werden will: Führende Experten waren sich einig, dass eine nachhaltigere Modeindustrie sowohl das Ziel eines Einzelnen als auch das Ziel einer ganzen Modekultur und -wirtschaft ist. Mode braucht weniger Verschwendung und weniger Begehrlichkeit – dafür aber umso mehr Freude, ganzheitliche Schönheit und Qualität, verwurzelt in einem einheitlichen Gefühl der Solidarität unter Machern und Konsumenten – die letztlich entscheiden, was sie tragen. Modemarken müssen bessere Optionen anbieten, um auf diese neue Nachfrage zu reagieren. Hier ist eine mutige Führung zum gesellschaftlichen Wandel gefragt, der weit über das Produkt hinausgeht. 

One of the biggest upcoming shifts in fashion will be from physical to digital fashion and that will change the way we communicate, design, and interact with products. A completely new and sustainable fashion ecosystem will result, if we make wise use of the opportunities of innovative technology. Education is where it all starts, paving the way for a new generation of advanced designers and leading into optimized transparency and circularity – yet only with the support of policymakers in united actions.

202030 – The Berlin Fashion Summit is organized by studio MM04 in cooperation with Sqetch and the Beneficial Design Institute. Funded by the Senate Department for Economics, Energy and Public Enterprises Berlin. Partner of the official Berlin Fashion Week..

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Let’s shape the industry together!