It’s not every day that an edition of Vogue launches its own fashion fund. Yet today Kerstin Weng, head of editorial content for Vogue Germany, took to the floor of the James Simon Galerie in Berlin to announce the seven inaugural finalists of this first year of the FCG/Vogue Fashion Fund. They would be: Kasia Kucharska, Lou de Betoly, Lueder, Namilia, Richert Bell, SF10G, and Sia Arnika. Congratulations to each and every one of them. They’re an impressively talented group of designers, and the winner, who receives a prize of 25,000 euros, will be announced at Vogue Germany’s Forces of Fashion event on September 23 in Munich.
The fund has been launched in conjunction with the Fashion Council Germany (FCG), much as the CFDA works with American Vogue, or the British Fashion Council with Vogue UK. And it has done so with the blessing of Michael Biel, Secretary of State for the city of Berlin, who has lent his impressive and weighty support. In other words: It all aids and abets the idea that by pulling together, you can support the next generation of talents. And sometimes—well, usually, all the time, in fact—there’s an urgency to that.
“It can feel like we are struggling to keep our talents in this country,” said Weng. “All of them want to show in Paris. So the fund is intended to put Berlin back on the map, and give our designers support, whether it’s financial or press exposure. For them and their work to be seen here, in this city.” The choice of unveiling the first finalists in Berlin was deliberate, she says. “In Germany there are things going on fashion-wise in other cities, like Dusseldorf, but Berlin is our fashion capital.”
The initial roster of applicants was whittled down by Weng, the FCG’s Christiane Arp and Scott Lipinski, and Mumi Haiati, the CEO and founder of PR firm Reference Studios. By the time they got to around 30 or so applications, those judges were joined by an expanded committee of singer Kim Petras, film producer (and Vogue China alumni) Margaret Zhang, Edward Enninful OBE, Global Creative and Cultural Advisor of Vogue, and the model (and my brilliant fellow CVFF judge) Paloma Elsesser. Together, they arrived at this year’s rather magnificent seven.
If the choice of Berlin makes pragmatic sense—it’s fashion week, so everyone is in town, so duh—there’s also a bigger cultural force at work here: this city defines not only how fashion is seen within Germany itself, but globally as well. Even if not everyone lives and works here, there’s still that sense, says Weng, that it colors what the designers are doing. “They’re all different, of course,” she said, “but they all have this special attitude. It’s not about a classic interpretation of fashion. It’s very cool, very urban, very zeitgeist-y—very Berlin.”
As she pointed out—and as I can attest, in my admittedly brief 24 hours and counting in town—is that generationally designers here are engaged with questioning the system and the status quo: fiercely embracing diversity and sustainability and community through their work. The work of the finalists is imbued with powerful and compelling storytelling. It’s talent augmented by authenticity.
What this group also strives for, as Weng said, is to be far away from what we once thought of as German fashion. “It’s not what we typically think of, someone like Jil Sander, whose work was so much about absolute perfection,” she said. “In Berlin, they love to deconstruct, to turn it upside down and then put it back together again. These designers don’t strive to be perfect. They embrace the imperfect and the rough, because Berlin can be a very raw city—and that’s the beauty of what they do.”