Berlin Fashion Week | Germany, Europe
Last updated: July 30, 2026
Berlin Fashion Week (BFW) has run twice yearly since July 2007, built around the city’s subcultural energy rather than established couture houses. Fashion Council Germany (FCG) has directed the event since 2023, focusing it squarely on emerging talent, sustainability, and inclusion.
History
Mercedes-Benz sponsored Berlin Fashion Week for over a decade, running it as “Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Berlin” through creative agency NOWADAYS, with shows staged at the Brandenburg Gate from 2011 onward.
That era produced some of the event’s most distinctive moments, including StyleNite, a runway-and-performance hybrid by Berlin designer Michael Michalsky, known for casting models with disabilities and models over 60 alongside performers like Lady Gaga.
Fashion Council Germany, founded in 2015 under founding member and president Christiane Arp, took over BFW’s direction in January 2023, after Mercedes-Benz withdrew its sponsorship in 2022. Scott Lipinski has served as FCG’s CEO since 2017.
Under FCG, Berlin Fashion Week adopted Copenhagen Fashion Week’s sustainability minimum standards as a pilot in 2024, reaching full effect by February 2026, alongside FCG’s own Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging code of conduct. Read more →
Latest News
- Berlin Contemporary opens internationally for the first time. For Spring/Summer 2026, the FCG-backed talent program welcomed international entrants for the first time. Uganda’s BUZIGAHILL, Ghana’s PALMWINE IceCREAM, and Nigeria’s Orange Culture all won places among 19 honorees, each receiving €25,000. Read more →
- FCG/Vogue Fashion Fund enters its second round. The program offers €50,000, mentoring, and a dedicated runway show during Berlin Fashion Week’s summer 2026 edition. Applications closed December 7, 2025. Read more →
- RAUM.Berlin returns at Potsdamer Platz for AW26. The installation-and-performance format, launched in July 2025, returned as a competition backed by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, featuring labels like Esther Perbandt. Read more →
- International designers anchor the AW26 season’s Intervention platform. The Impression’s recap highlighted Kenneth Ize (Nigeria), BUZIGAHILL (Uganda), and John Lawrence Sullivan (Japan) among the season’s standout international names. Read more →
Economic and Industry Impact
Berlin’s fashion industry employs around 25,000 people across nearly 5,000 companies, generating roughly €5 billion in annual revenue. The Berlin Senate’s Department for Economic Affairs, Energy and Public Enterprises invests approximately €2 million per season across Berlin Fashion Week’s various formats. Read more →
Compared to Paris or Milan’s couture-driven economics, Berlin’s model runs on public investment in emerging talent rather than established luxury houses, closer in spirit to Amsterdam’s approach than to the Big Four’s.
A Story Worth Telling
Berlin Fashion Week brands itself around “freedom, inclusion, and creativity.” For Spring/Summer 2026, that stopped being just a slogan. When Fashion Council Germany opened its flagship Berlin Contemporary program to international entrants for the first time, the winners included designers from Uganda, Ghana, and Nigeria, not just Germany.
It’s a meaningful shift for a program built to launch local talent. And it isn’t isolated: over the past four seasons, women have made up more than half of Berlin Fashion Week’s participating designers, a figure FCG points to directly when other fashion weeks are still working toward that same balance. For a fashion week that spent over a decade under a car brand’s name, Berlin’s current identity looks far more deliberately built than borrowed.
Berlin Fashion Week
fashionweek.berlin