The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
9 Festival for Fashion & Photography, by Jork Weisman
VIENNA, Austria — Every so often we are lucky to hear about wonderful initiatives to cultivate creativity and fashion outside the main fashion capitals. One such event is the 9 Festival for Fashion and Photography held this year between 28 May and 10 June in the Austrian capital, where the spirit of Helmut Lang still lives on and fashion remains a huge passion for the locals.
Each year, the fashion faithful from around Austria and other parts of Europe descend on Vienna to celebrate Austrian fashion designers, discuss emerging industry trends and topics, and otherwise immerse themselves in fashion for ten days when Vienna becomes the epicentre fashion world.
The entire conference is organised and conceived by Unit F büro für mode, an innovative government-funded initiative originally created by Ulrike Tschabitzer-Handler and Andreas Oberkanins to support, nurture and showcase the emerging fashion scene in Austria.
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This year, The Business of Fashion is especially pleased to be participating in three events during the festival calendar:
Austrian Fashion Awards — Earlier this year, I nipped over to Vienna for a day to join a jury of fellow fashion professionals to shortlist the finalists for this years Austria Fashion Awards which recognise the best in emerging Austrian and International fashion design. Finalists for this year's awards include Ali Zedtwitz, Christina Steiner, Christina Berger, RADIC / MORGER, Awareness & Consciousness and Wilfried Mayer.
The jury will meet again early next week to select the finalists before an awards presentation on Wednesday night's Festival Gala.
E-Commerce Day — On Friday 5 May, we will chat with Stephanie Phair of theOutnet.com, Sarah Curran of my-wardrobe.com and Jose Neves of www.farfetch.com who will share their visions and business models for the future of ecommerce in the fashion industry.
Fashion Blogger Day — On Saturday 6 May, we will be discussing the future of fashion media with fashion bloggers from around Europe, including old friends Diane Pernet (AShadedViewOnFashion.com) and Susie Bubble (stylebubble.typepad.com), and new friends Julia Knolle (www.lesmads.com) and Johannes Thumfart (www.sueddeutsche.de).
The 9 Festival for Fashion and Photography will be held from 28 May to 10 June in Vienna, Austria. Campaign images feature the designs of nominated designers and are styled by fellow jury member Markus Ebner of Achtung Magazine.
