The first Fashion Week day started with a sensation: Adidas wants to present a new co-CEO in Berlin. A press release from Adidas landed in the specialist media on Monday morning. The new boss Björn Gulden wants to dare nothing less than a revolution for more social and ecological responsibility.
Gulden got the investigative journalist and trade unionist Vay Ya Nak Phoan to help with this. She comes from Cambodia, the country where Adidas has many of its shoes made. Strange that the logo was printed upside down – and didn’t that sound a bit too idealistic for a global company?
That Adidas also got the record on board as a partner – respect. The Berlin association Platte on Memhardtstraße in Mitte is actually a place where young, wild and, above all, diverse fashion is presented and sold. And it got even better: the collection that was shown was designed by pop star Pharrell Williams. He’s not just a pop star, he also takes care of recycling the plastic from the sea and making it into clothing, preferably for Adidas.
Only when the new boss posed in a victory pose on the kneeling marketing boss did most of the invited guests realize that this couldn’t be Adidas. Behind the action is the activist group “Yes Men”, which wants to point out abuses. For example, that in Cambodia eleven million euros in wages from Adidas suppliers are still outstanding, as explained by “Yes Men” founder Mike Bonnano to the magazine “Der Spiegel”.
“We didn’t hesitate for a moment to do this action,” says Arne Eberle from the record. He was amazed “how many people ate it”. Even when the Adidas logo was branded on the cheeks of the models, many still believed in a successful PR campaign by Adidas. “For us, it was the best action we’ve ever done. We want to change something,” says Eberle.
With this campaign at the latest, activism has become part of Fashion Week. It’s not new that events are talking about the fact that fashion is one of the biggest polluters and responsible for a lot of evil in the world. The fashion industry has long since reacted to this. She is good at quickly adapting to circumstances and moods. This often leads to the suspicion of “greenwashing”. Adidas also has to deal with such allegations from human rights and environmental organizations.
For a long time, the actions of activists took place in front of the Fashion Week tent at the Brandenburg Gate. For example, members of the animal welfare organization Peta doused themselves in fake blood to draw attention to the fact that materials are being presented on the catwalk in which animal welfare probably did not play a major role. This time there was a PETA action against the brutal extraction methods of feathers
“Fashion and activism go together and there is more and more,” says Friederike von Wedel-Parlow. She should know, after all she is not only a professor of sustainable fashion, but also co-organizer of the sustainable fashion conference “202030 The Berlin Fashion Summit”, which will take place at the Premium fashion fair starting tomorrow.
So fair working conditions and the fight against greenwashing are being talked about exactly where big brands are presenting their products for next autumn.
“We don’t know if it will go together. But we have to try.” This is how trade fair boss Anita Tillmann sums it up: the fashion industry has no choice but to open up and adapt its business models.
If only because activism concerns young people in particular. You want and have to win them over because, unlike in almost any other industry, it is all about constant renewal. If you look around at all the innovative new labels from Berlin these days, it could also mean not producing anything new, but using old clothes as material for fashion.
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