Berlin Fashion Week

The fashion industry has come to Berlin this week, with the German capital hosting four major fashion events. Millions are being made, thousands have come to take part. But it's not high fashion that's making all the money -- a trade fair is coming to the rescue of German designers.

In Berlin, a city of casual creativity and sensible civil servants, there are not too many wildly dressed women wearing high heels. But this week the central streets of the German capital have been alive with the clickety-clack of designer heels. The bold, the beautiful and the fashion-obsessed have been in town due to not one, but four fashion models events taking place in the German capital this week.

This is some of the most frenetic fashion trade show activity the city has seen for years. There are three trade fairs dedicated to the garment industry running between July 1 and 4 -- Premium for the fashion industry in general, Boudoir, a lingerie trade show and Bread & Butter, a streetwear trade show. And at the same time Berlin is also putting on its bi-annual fashion week, during which local and international designers show their wares on runways around the city.

And although it might seem like Berlin Fashion Week is the most important and glamorous of the four, it's actually Bread & Butter that will draw the most international visitors and likely do the most business. This year there will be around 567 exhibitors -- including big name brands like Nike, Adidas and Levis as well as a vast multitude of smaller brands -- showing at what is the largest "urban-wear" industry fair of its kind in the world. The first day's figures indicate that around 25,000 visitors attended. Between 40,000 and 80,000 visitors are average for the event, with just under half expected to come from outside of Germany this year.

Bread & Butter's new venue has also been a draw card. The trade fair started out in Cologne, moved to Berlin in 2005 but left for four years in Barcelona due to lack of space before being enticed back onto home ground by Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit.

Part of the reason for the return was the mayor's promise that organizers would be able to use Tempelhof, a historic former airport built in the 1920s, as a site for their event for the next 10 years. This led some locals, who believe the airport should be a UNESCO World Heritage site, to protest outside the trade fair.

Meanwhile, local designers and garment industry insiders have expressed nothing but joy over Bread & Butter's return. After some secrecy on the planned dates for Berlin fashion Week -- which is run by IMG, a New York producer of fashion weeks around the world -- organizers revealed that their event would be held at the same time as Bread & Butter.

By Cathrin Schaer in Berlin