Berlin's 10th Annual Bread & Butter urban street fashion festival defined Fall's upcoming fashions. Among the V.I.P. crowd was Dirk Thomas, a former nightlife director who is helping to revive Merz b. Schwanen, a German label that produces high-end T-shirts woven on vintage circular knitting machines. Schwanen is now a cheerleader for heritage brands like Red Wing boots paired with worn, vintage Wranglers or Levis.
“Nigel is the next big thing,” Mr. Thomas said, referring to Nigel Cabourn, a British designer who revived his brand four years ago. “He travels around the world to find clothing with a history, like the jackets made for early climbers of Mount Everest, and then reinvents them with modern details and coloring.”
Bread & Butter is one of the world's most important urban street trade shows and artistic spectacles. It can only be described as orchestrated urban chaos on the historic grounds of Tempelhof, the site of the Berlin Airlift.
With performances by Mos Def, the Australian metal group Airbourne and the German hip-hop band Deichkind. A 'gang' dressed as 1950's greasers broke in windows of cars with baseball bats and encouraged the crowd to join in. One group even flipped a car over.
Even the mayor, Klaus Wowereit, showed up in his Levi's and welcomed the 10th anniversary of Bread & Butter.
Stop in The Country General Store for a new pair of Red Wing Boots with Wranglers or Levi's for the hit new Urban Style for Fall.
