Berlin Fashion Week began Tuesday. Dutch designer Erik Frenken has opened with his latest collection for the label Avelon. While the new initiative “Fashion Fusion” promotes young talents that combine fashion with technology and creates visionary concepts into lifestyle products. 

Designer Erik Frenken's show

Designer Erik Frenken says his show is inspired by the Victorian period. It features stripy shirt-dresses and skirts, breezy wrap-around blouse and sneakers with platform soles.

“I started playing with these concepts, stripes and ruffles, giving the antique approach to pleating and ruffling and shapes, A-line shapes. But, of course, the Plexiglas that made the watch a modern bracelet is the final result. So I started making it in poplin, in clean materials, in shiny satins, also to create really a ‘now-look’ for me which is kind of the pyjama, effortless, clean, cool, relaxed look,” said Frenken. 

Beside the 30 plus runway shows by established designers, there will also be different exhibitions, fairs and competitions.

Lisa Lang, the curator of the exhibition “Fashion Fusion,” works as a producer for the so-called smart fashion herself. She is convinced that fashion and technology must work together. 

“We have a situation where fashion and technology have understood that they must work together. And the great thing in fashion is that it can tell a story. They have an emotional power. And the great thing in technology is that everything is possible. What do you want to built? Which functions do you want it to have? Alone, just for themselves, they cannot afford such a new production chain. But together, everything is possible,” Lang said.

There are also some who believe Germany must get going.

“Germany actually does have all the components: We have great experience in the area of textile design, we have great experience in the area of microelectronics. But they don’t manage to bring both together. And now this is the moment where we can bring it together and together shape those new forms of interaction. But we really need to get going because the competition does not sleep and in Silicon Valley is busy creating as well. So Germany really has to get going,” said Gesche Joost, Head of German Design Research Lab.

The best team receives not only the admiration of the visitors but also a prize money of 20,000 euros and a chance to develop the collection for mass production. They will be presented at the Berlin Fashion Week in January 2017 at the Fashion Tech.