Could Berlin be the European flagship for sustainable fashion?
Illustration: Lily Lowe
Walking through Neukölln, Schillerkiez, or Kreuzberg, you’d think fast fashion was a thing of the past. Unassuming shopfronts disguise a handful of independent boutiques where second-hand clothing is repurposed, deadstock fabric is upcycled and designers experiment with new sustainable textiles. Adrianna Nicoletti’s Green Fashion Tours, created in 2015, offer an insight into Berlin’s most eco-fashion-forward neighbourhoods, spotlighting small businesses that sell clothing designed both to last and to generate as small a carbon footprint as possible.
In Kreuzberg, the tour leads you past Folkdays, founded by Lisa Jaspers in 2013 in part to dispel the myth of shapeless grey jumpsuits and beige sack dresses that persists in the conversation surrounding eco fashion. Folkdays stocks products made using traditional techniques and locally-sourced materials that are nevertheless designed for a contemporary market. But its aims are also political; Jaspers sources accessories, clothing and home products from artisans, family businesses, and small organisations in Africa, Asia, and South America, who calculate the product prices themselves to ensure a fair wage, drawing attention to the injustices that occur in the supply chains of global fashion companies. Customers leave with “timeless and distinctive products – favourite pieces for eternity.”
Lebenskleidung, on the other hand, is a fabric store that stocks entirely sustainable, GOTS-certified textiles, and aims to develop fabric that is both “innovative and appealing”. A GOTS certification confirms a product is organic, environmentally responsible, and socially conscious through a rigorous inspection at each level of the production process. Workers’ wages, energy consumption and chemical emissions are all subject to particular standards that ensure high quality, durable products with a reduced impact on people and the planet.
Other stops on the tour include Schillerkiez’s Mahlower Eins and Süßstoff. The former is home to a collective of photographers, tailors and couturiers, and functions as much a showroom as an atelier, where they experiment with alternative silhouettes and printing techniques. Süßstoff, just a few streets away, features established organic and sustainable brands to offer a range of homeware, clothing and accessories.
But the real benefit of the Green Fashion Tours is the opportunity they offer to talk to the people who make the clothes they sell. It brings home the reality of the intricate processes of design and production required to make a piece of clothing and highlights the extreme exploitation that facilitates the continued existence of the global fashion industry. In this sense, then, Nicoletti’s tours fulfil their intended purpose to educate the public about the ravages of the fashion industry. The question is, however, whether the brands responsible for this damage will ever take the trouble to reform their practices, or adopt the slow fashion ethos that prioritises durability, positive working conditions, and treading lightly on the planet.
It doesn’t seem likely. Though Berlin Fashion Week has been praised for its environmentalist stance, which centres ethical and eco-friendly fashion as integral to the future of haute couture, both high fashion and even the sustainable products sold at the stores featured on the Green Fashion Tours remain inaccessible to vast swathes of the population. Any evidence for fundamental improvements has also yet to be seen in German fast fashion companies, even those who attempt to cultivate an eco-friendly image. Adidas, the second-biggest activewear brand in the world after Nike, was found guilty in September of greenwashing by the Jury de Déontologie Publicitaire, an organisation responsible for holding brands to account for claims made in advertising campaigns. An ad that labelled Stan Smith trainers “100% iconic, 50% recycled” was judged misleading, because it gave the false impression that half the materials used to make each shoe were recycled. According to Good on You, a database that provides ratings for a variety of brands based on their environmental and social impact, Adidas “has a long way to go” in assuring a fair salary for their workers. While ahead of its competitors - like Nike or Puma, the latter being another German brand - with respect to the environment, the disparity in pay between celebrities sponsored by Adidas and the workers who make their garments adds insult to injury.
It seems that brands are reluctant to adjust their methods because they deliver the desired results. The fashion industry is highly lucrative for those at the top of the metaphorical food chain, and buying new clothes has become irresistible now that trend cycles - and, correspondingly, the turnaround of clothes from designer to customer - last just two weeks. While it’s currently in fashion for companies to adopt an environmentally conscious slant, this is no more than a façade for the mechanisms of environmental and interpersonal exploitation at the heart of the fast fashion industry - and Berlin-based TNCs are no less immune to this than their counterparts. It will require more profound structural change for Berlin truly to achieve the eco-friendly image it aspires to.
