Dubai, 25 October 2011: The Goethe-Institut German Language Center Dubai, liaison office of the Goethe-Institut Gulf-Region, presents an exciting cultural week from Oct 29 until November 2 focussing on fashion developments in Berlin and the United Arab Emirates, particularly Dubai, and will present the rich diversity and uniqueness of the developments in both cities. Due to its young and energetic urban cultural scene and its influences on fashion, Berlin designers became extremely popular in Europe, America and Asia. Dubai with all its multicultural influences became also a hub for modern fashion, influenced by its Arabic and Asian heritage. Similarities and differences will be explored and discussed with professionals and the interested public.
Friederike Moeschel, director of the Goethe-Institut German Language Center Dubai: ”We are very happy to give young aspiring fashion designers from the German capital and Dubai the opportunity to get in touch with each other and to reflect on one another’s experience. People in Dubai are very fashion-conscious regardless of their origins and backgrounds. Therefore, we hope that the Berlin-Dubai Festival 2011 will attract a lot of them!”
The Berlin-Dubai Festival provides an unique possibility to get to know Berlin, one of the most popular travel destinations in Europe. Berlin attracts more and more
visitors from the UAE, especially since the German airline airberlin offers nonstop flights from Dubai to Berlin. And on the website visitBerlin.com, visitors will find all information to plan a trip to Berlin - content is also available in the Arabian language.
The Goethe-Institut is a world-wide organization working to promote German language and culture. With a network of 149 institutes and ten liaison offices in 92 countries around the world and 13 institutes in Germany, the Goethe-Institut acts on behalf of the German Government to implement it’s cultural relations policy. The Goethe-Institut Gulf Region offers German language teaching in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Al-Ain and organises cultural events in the Gulf Region.
The festival will officially start at The Pavilion Downtown Dubai on Saturday, 29th October at 8:00pm with the exhibition opening “Inspiration Berlin”.
How can you transform a city’s unique atmosphere and life-style into fashion?
The German style icon, model and artist Veruschka Countess of Lehndorff aka VERUSCHKA’s interpretation of New York in the 90s was illustrated in an emersed photo-series, which was presented in international museums and galeries. Having the same cutting-edge feeling now about the vivid German capital, VERUSCHKA arranged a workshop with ESMOD Berlin students with the topic “Inspiration Berlin” in the form of fashion. They worked with interesting materials from Berlin, which showed a high variety of a fascinating metropole consisting of controversy and likeable details transformed into fashion.
The exhibition was first presented at the Deutsche Bank Atrium in Berlin, June 2011.
On Sunday, 30th October at 8:00pm (The Pavilion Downtown Dubai), the festival will continue with a panel discussion on “Globalized Fashion”. Dubai-based designers and Berlin designers will discuss the challenges and problems of a fashion industry in a globalised world and the importance to keep traditions alive. Participants of this distinguished panel discussion are Christine Pluess/ co-founder of Berlin-based fashion label Mongrels in Common, Khulood Thani/ founder of Emirati fashion label bint thani, Mona Fares/ founder of the Dubai based fashion label Neon Edge, Leila Al Marashi/ cofounder of Emirati label Sugar Vintage and Julia Bruchwitz/ co-founder of Dubai-based fashion label JZ Couture.
The panel discussion will be held in English. German and Arabic interpreters will be available.
The discussion will be followed by the Movie “Notebooks on Cities and Clothes” (1989) by the German director Wim Wenders. In this essayist documentary about fashion and its place in contemporary society, Wim Wenders focuses on the Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto. Moving between Tokyo and Paris, the movie creates a dialogue between two rapidly changing forms of communication – fashion and film, which both search constantly for new modes of expression.
The movie is shown with English subtitles.
On Monday, 31st October at 8:00pm (The Pavilion Downtown Dubai), Jessica Weiss, the creator of Germany’s most popular fashion blog lesmads.de will have a Workshop on Fashion Blogging. Since the creation of the first fashion blogs,the fashion debate has become more multi-voiced and faster moving. Today, everyone can express his or her ideas about fashion, styling and trends. Jessica Weiss, whose fashion blog won the Lead Award 2010 (Gold) and is shortlisted for the Grimme Online Award 2011, will talk about her experiences and the opportunities and challenges of creating one’s own fashion blog.
The workshop will be held in English.
On Tuesday, 1st November at 8:00pm (The Pavilion Downtown Dubai) the series of events will end with the book presentation “German Fashion Design 1946-2011”. Nadine Barth, the editor of the miscellany of essays, interviews, portraits and photo collections, will talk about the significance of fashion in Germany during the last decades and today, the existence of a typical German fashion style, and its influence on modern culture.
The book presentation will be in English.
Part of the Berlin-Dubai Festival 2011 will be a Young Fashion Designer Exchange between young designers from Dubai and students of Esmod Berlin International University of Art for Fashion:
Four young designers from Dubai will travel to Berlin, the fascinating capital of Germany, middle of October 2011 to be introduced to its vibrant urban fashion scene and to get in contact with students from Esmod Berlin. During the Berlin-Dubai Festival, four young fashion design students from Berlin will come to Dubai to be introduced to this multicultural young city and to participate in a workshop, in which they will - together with their Dubai-based colleagues- develop a collection of clothes, which represent the traditions and influences of both cities, Dubai and Berlin.
All participants of the exchange program will have the opportunity to present their own designs to the public during the Closing Party of the Berlin-Dubai Festival on Wednesday, 2nd November 8:00pm at the Kempinski Hotel& Residences Palm Jumeirah.
The whole Dubai/ Berlin-collection will be presented to the public in January 2012.
During the Berlin-Dubai Festival, there will also be a series of workshops in cooperation with Zayed University Dubai, College of Communication and Media Sciences.
The Berlin- Dubai Festival will also be accompanied by the Fashion Blog “Dubai Looks!” on www.goethe.de/dubai, which will be created by students of Zayed University Dubai, College of Communication and Media Sciences and students of the Goethe-Institut German Language Center Dubai.