The doors to the hallway are hung.

Small, lighted rooms illuminate the corridor, in them stand one, sometimes two models.

Motionless, they present outfits, each item of clothing produced sustainably.

It is the masked viewers who move past them, in groups they are allowed to look at this installation of the “Neonyt” trade fair for a few minutes.

This is how fashion is presented in times of the pandemic: The models stand on the edge. 

When the fashion week was brought from Berlin to Frankfurt last year with the big trade fairs "Premium", "Seek" and "Neonyt", this should give German fashion new weight: The Frankfurt Fashion Week is intended to establish the trade fair city as a fashion city, and the Discover the fashion world for yourself in the trade fair city (especially with its expertise in the textile industry). The fact that the christening in summer 2021 then took place almost exclusively digitally could be coped with with the prospect that in January of this year everything could take place as imagined: conferences, fashion shows, parties, trade fairs, people on site. 

However, due to the worsening pandemic situation, the decision was made at short notice to cancel the trade fairs.

So what took place between January 17th and January 21st was again mainly digital;

Only on a small scale were there a few shows, conferences, showrooms and installations such as “Neonyt”.

The focus was again on the major issues that are subordinate to the motto of Fashion Week "Reform The Future": On the one hand, it's about sustainability (Frankfurt Fashion Week is the first fashion week to be based on the sustainability goals of the United Nations).

On the other hand, it’s about digitization – but also nonens volens because of the pandemic.

Does the Frankfurt Fashion Week differ fundamentally from others because it was forced to take place digitally first?

“The fact that we will also be offering hybrid, supplementary formats in the future will continue to play an important role.

Ultimately, however, our goal is to get people to come to Frankfurt – even if perhaps at a later point in time.

However, the digital should rather promote the Fashion Week,” says Hendrik Müller-Giegler, Director of the Frankfurt Fashion Week.

He is on site at the fashion show of the Berlin label "Susumu Ai", which was held in Gdansk on the square by the Fashion Council Germany, one of the few shows that took place.

To allow the audience to keep some distance, the show was shown in different rooms - at least fashion had a physical stage here.

“The industry still needs a platform. We need these events, even if the framework conditions are different.” So did Fashion Week this year only work with the prospect that everything could take place as planned in July? "At the moment we are assuming that we will be able to implement everything in the summer and establish the industry here. That also means being able to offer something to Frankfurt’s urban society and the surrounding area.”

This has already been attempted with installations in the city: the pillars of the B level in Frankfurt's Hauptwache were covered with large-format pictures by fashion photographers; 60 works by the FAZ fashion photographer Helmut Fricke are also on display at a dozen locations. On Monday he went to three of these places and told how the pictures were taken and why he chose them. As he explains, the pandemic coincided with his departure from the fashion world: "When I retired a year and a half ago and Corona broke out, I was afraid that this world would be lost for me here. There were no more fashion shows and it was no longer possible to travel.” With Florian Jöckel, who runs the “Massif Central” event location, among other things, the idea of ​​exhibiting pictures in Frankfurt was born. 

Fricke knows the metropolises of the world, but Frankfurt is the city where his "heart lies". And so the walls of the Frankfurt pop-up store "Massif Central Arts" are papered with pictures of the last shows by Karl Lagerfeld - a beach landscape and a winter landscape in the Grand Palais in Paris. One wall shows photographers crowded together, the photo is from an Adidas show in New York. The cameras seem to be aimed at the viewers, it is intended to convey what it would be like to be there.

"Fricke attaches great importance to the fact that fashion can be communicated to everyone," said Lord Mayor Peter Feldmann, who gave the speech.

That's why they wanted to have a "Gallery Walk" through the city, like this one: "This also opens up the fashion world for those who otherwise think: It's just fashion." That's why the pictures stay longer, until February 27 in fashion stores, the Hilton and the Jumeirah Hotel.

In the Jumeirah Hotel, apart from Fricke's pictures, clothes were also on display: the designs from the show could be viewed and purchased again in the small showroom.

Scott Lipinski, Managing Director of the Fashion Council Germany, considers organizing more such formats in the summer to be a sensible consequence of the pandemic version of the fashion week: “One of the tasks will be to find more space for the talents: showrooms and pop up stores as part of the fair.”

After all, it's not just about presentation, the young labels also have to do business.

According to Lipinski, the success of a fashion week can also be measured by how satisfied the designers were - this applies to all fashion weeks.

"Alisa and Keiho Menkhaus, who won the Fashion Council competition with their studio Susumu Ai, were very satisfied!" 

Nevertheless, the Fashion Council Germany doesn't just wear "Frankfurt glasses" - it's about German fashion.

You need trade fairs for that.

One hopes for the summer.

"We drive on sight, but we expect a live audience." That can then perhaps take the place on the edge again.