When the fashion label Vetements sent a model with a fir-green hoodie down the Parisian catwalks in 2017, the small town of Osnabrück became famous in the fashion world.

Because on the sweatshirt it said: “Luckily I'm from Osnabrück.” A little later, stars like One Direction singer Louis Tomlinson and fashion blogger Chiara Ferragni also wore the slogan T-shirt.

But neither the celebrities nor Vetements are deeply connected with Osnabrück: The brand just likes to provoke.

She wanted to show that anything in the fashion world can be sold, the main thing is that it is expensive.

The good piece cost 780 euros.

Hardly anyone in Osnabrück picked up the original from the streetwear label.

It wasn't even necessary.

The Osnabrück tourist information office sells similar ones - for less than 40 euros.

No it-pieces for fashion lovers, but they serve their purpose: local patriotism.

Chainsaw and cuckoo clock

Local flavor used to be embarrassing, not cool. Just don't let it be seen that you're from the provinces and don't know how to read a map of the subway. Now, however, the love of home is hip, also in fashion: there is hardly a region in which there is no streetwear label that sells T-shirts, jute bags and hats with a homeland reference. Local symbols, regional slogans or geographical prints: if you love your homeland, wear them on your chest - instead of a crocodile, polo player or three stripes.

Two people who recognized the fashion potential of their homeland over ten years ago are Nadja and Ralf Schuler from Waldwerk. In 2009 they printed T-shirts with Black Forest lettering for a transalp tour by bike. It was so well received that they opened an online shop in 2010. The most popular prints: the chainsaw (“spruce moped”) and the cuckoo clock (“Black Forest - Good Times”), says Ralf Schuler. "Back then the home topic wasn't that big, but we hit a nerve."

Ralf Schuler's roots are in the Black Forest.

He moved away for his studies and his first jobs, to Munich, Frankfurt, Konstanz - not mega-metropolises, and yet: “I was struck by urbanity.

And every time I came home, my heart opened up. ”After 15 years, he moved back.

"You only feel what home means once you've been away."

Globalization robs us of individuality

Home is not a place, but a feeling.

An emotional bond with a very specific corner of the world.

That doesn't necessarily have to be the place of birth, says Jens Jäger from the Historical Institute at the University of Cologne.

“It's the place where you feel comfortable and secure.

Where one is accepted. ”The fact that this love of homeland is fashionably displayed is new, says Jäger.

Globalization is to blame, which robs us of our individuality.

“The big fashion chains sell the same clothes across all continents.” Yet fashion is an expression of our personality, our being.

“But I don't have a global identity, I come from here.

My home is my identity, ”says Jäger.

This individuality distinguishes the home brands - and what makes them so successful.