First week of July I attended Berlin Fashion Week. A buzzing event with showrooms all over the city. I went here to look at colours and of course sustainability.
Looking at a fashion week is a clear indication on where our world is going next year. At an event like this, brands are showing samples that stores will buy. For me, it is a great opportunity to, first of all, see what colours we will “love” next year. So you love yellow 2019 – what will you love next year?
But let’s start with sustainability. It is extremely interesting to see how fast the fashion world is adopting to our sustainable needs. Of course there are plenty of examples of organic cotton – but that’s not enough. It’s like the whole fashion industry is trying better, harder and more. I will give some examples below.
One of the places where you can clearly see how the fashion world is trying “better” is at Neonyt. This is a showroom or a venue with 165 brands (yes, I counted…). To exhibit here you must have a sustainble brand. There are 46 criteria that a brand need to fullfil to be able to exhibit here. And they are looking at everything from organic cotton to fair trade and much much more.
I must say it was incredibly inspiring to look at over 150 brands doing new jeans out of old jeans, upcycling, new materials etc, etc.
Neonyt venue.
At the fair or showroom you find not only clothes but everything for lifestyle. And curated and selected. These are possibly the best of the sustainable brands of the world.
New innovations like glasses made of recycled aluminum.
And organic cotton just just the first level of sustainability, now the majority of the fashion brands make garments of tencel or out of recycled plastics from the ocean.
And of course communications is important. We want to be associated with sustainable brands.
We will see sustainable stars like here with Jane Goodall. Of course organic cotton.
Or why not get a t-shirt with Swedish Greta. Three Swedish brands were participating at Neonyt. Shoebrands Kavat and Tenpoints, and fashion brand Dedicated.
But let’s look at colours for 2020. I would say that the main colour for next year will be this terracotta red. Not as bright as corall, and not as pink or dusty… It is clearly a terracotta hue. Works well together with misty green, blue of all kinds and egg white.
The yellow hues of 2019 are still here but to a lesser extent.
And next summer we will see a lot of blue. Navy is there.
Last reflection. Over the last few years we have noted how we are getting less and less patterns. Yes, of course you will find the odd flower, but in general there are stripes, lines or a dot. But no real patterns. Perhaps we will break this line of patternless years. And perhaps we will see an updated leopard print.
Not real leopard, but kind of a distant relative…
Same here.
Leaves that is almost leopard.
So – colours of 2020? First of all make it sustainable. This whole industry is booming. I love the new materials and the experiments with consumerism etc etc. There is a lot of new and fun energy in this field.
But for colours – go for a terracotta base, add dustry green, blue and egg white. You can of course do something in yellow but that will be less important. If you want to go more conservative go for navy blue. And do experiment with the leopard print.