A few of our favorite things from Berlin Fashion Week's Bread and Butter Tradeshow

Models wear two looks from the Joop! SS 13 Women's Wear collection

The Rock

The theme of this season’s Bread & Butter tradeshow in Berlin is ‘The Rock‘ – a perfectly apposite title as the vast three-day event is the cornerstone of Berlin’s fashion week. Bread & Butter’s rock-solid (geddit?) ambition is to embrace a huge number of styles, brands, and retailers while maintaining a sense of openness and “anarchic individuality”.

Here follow a few list-worthy things that got our juices flowing at this year’s B&B tradeshow.

The Brands

1. Joop! We all know Joop! as the purveyor of THAT teenage-boy scent but the brand have a lot more to offer as evident from their beautiful, wearable Spring/Summer 2013 women’s wear collection. The inspiration behind the line was ‘urban landscape’ – the collection fuses images and designs inspired by the gritty streets of Berlin with softer natural patterns and cuts. Featuring washed out denims in bright colors, beautiful reworked berry patterns on blouses and low-slung silk dresses, the finished effect is fun, innovative and eye-catching for all the right reasons. We love!

2. French Connection. The theme of the French Connection SS 2013 Ladieswear collection is Sports Luxe– the collection has a bright, relaxed, yet glamorous feel. It features a series of figure-hugging

Wooden bag from French Connection SS 13 collection

pencil skirts and is keeping the peplum trend alive with some peplum body-con dresses. These styles, which hark back to a 1950s aesthetic, are apparently hotly coveted by FC customers, “there is a big demand,” the press rep told us, “it’s what the customers have asked for”. Another highlight was a small wooden circular bag – unique and practical for any summer look.

3. Melissa. This Brazilian brand are leaders in plastic innovation – their main schtick is trying to make jelly shoes look chic and, through collaborations with fashion heavyweights like Diane Von Furstenberg, Gareth Pugh, and Jason Wu for their SS 13 collection, I would say that they have definitely succeeded. This is a controversial opinion though – while I think these shoes are fun, practical jelly joys, others in the Stylefavs office reckon they’re tacky, hideous abominations… decide for yourself!

A Fish Named Fred. The ‘Best Effort’ Award at B&B this year goes to the Dutch surf apparel brand A Fish Named Fred. They built a mini-beach house with water effects and sand to show their busy beach print shirts. Good for surf aesthetics. We also love their logo – a little goldfish with a shark’s fin strapped on to his back (lesson: be whatever you want to be!).

Chic or not chic? Melissa shoes

Finally, two other mentionables include the light colorful scarves that we picked up from German brand Codello and the delicious sandwiches that we swiped from the buffet section of Karl Lagerfeld’s ‘Lagerfeld’ menswear line. Danke Karl… for the tasty Bread-and-Butter-based treat.

Codello Scarves - light, colorful, and playful

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