On the fringes of official Europe, a less glamorous and more structural fashion scene is emerging. Barcelona, Copenhagen and Berlin are attempting to transform their peripheral status into a vision and processes into identity. Demonstrating how the future lies in territories capable of uniting roots, innovation and responsibility. What are the differences?
by Domenic Casoria
At the European Designer Fashion Summit (14–15 April, Barcelona), there was also a discussion of classic and alternative fashion capitals. Whilst Paris and Milan (and to a lesser extent London and New York) remain the Champions League, as Pascal Morand, executive president of the French Fashion Federation, admits, there are others that are now churning out not just clothes, but fully formed visions. For the past twenty years, European fashion has been finding its renewal on the fringes.
In cities that have turned their peripheral status into a method. Barcelona is the most obvious example. It has never claimed to be a capital, and that is precisely why it works today: because it brings together industry, hybridisation, manufacturing and technology. A sector that might seem isolated, but which instead follows a hybrid model of collaboration between business and the state. A city capable of uniting processes and aesthetics.
Pure oxygen
Copenhagen, on the other hand, has chosen a different path: creativity, yes, but accompanied by accountability. As Cecile Thorsmark, CEO of Copenhagen Fashion Week, points out, “we cannot be Milan or Paris, but we do not want to be. We have built a model that does not focus on spectacle, but on responsibility”. On value. On a different way of being a capital: less glamour, more structure. Berlin is yet another thing. It has stopped chasing Paris and has begun to recognise its own nature: freedom, experimentation, anti-form. A vision that brings possibility into play. A place where creativity becomes behaviour. This, within the modern European system, seems like pure oxygen.
Preserving heritage
Underlying it all, however, is a shared commitment: to safeguard our roots and heritage, without neglecting innovation. At the Barcelona Fashion Summit, Carlo Capasa made his position clear. “We need to pay artisans more and protect them through regulations and education. In Italy, many do not want to become artisans because we do not communicate the true value of the work effectively.” Without craftsmanship, there is no depth; without depth, there is no desire; without desire, there is no system. Europe can only decentralise if it protects what makes it unique: the hands that build, and not just the ideas that imagine.
On sustainability, however, there is a general warning. Major brands continue to communicate with caution, almost with fear. But if decentralisation teaches us anything, it is that transparency can become a competitive advantage. The new capitals are not afraid to reveal processes, limitations and attempts. And it is precisely this that makes them credible. European creativity, in short, grows (also) when it moves, when it decentralises, when, in addition to the verticality of historic capitals, it embraces the complexity of the regions. But to do so, it needs a new narrative for creative work, a new way of telling the story. One that, once and for all, shifts the focus from glamour to reality, from the mythological trappings of the past to a contemporary infrastructure.
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