I'm not quite sure what I expected, really.

 

I was psyched by the prospect of being in the city hosting this year's festivities for German reunification, especially such a significant anniversary as 25 Jahre Einheit. Considering the current dialogue in Germany and Europe involving asylum seekers, overcoming differences, tearing down walls and becoming one people is as relevant a message as ever.

 

Despite the weight of the historical background, I wasn't anticipating a festival asking its visitors to reflect. The occasion called for celebration of great grandeur. Euphoria all around! However, as I set out on the street, I was completely underwhelmed.

 

Making your way along the river was impossible in the crowd, let alone the prospect of getting a bratwurst - the minimum requirement at a German festival.  To the concerts at Opernplatz from Germany's current Top50 pop stars, Sarah Connor and Cro, I would have preferred the HR Symphony Orchestra. From Museumsuferfest to CSD, the festival booths were the typical ones making appearances at every Frankfurt festival.  I was missing that special-something, perhaps even something border lining the gimmicky and comical. My question: Where were the reenactments of the wall coming down? What about a competition to see who can bust down the Styrofoam wall in the least amount of time? (OK, so there were 1,000 Ampelmaennchen)

 

(c) Frankfurt Blog

 

Like most people, bright flashing lights fascinate me. After seeing pictures online of the practice rounds for the light show, I had high hopes for what was to come that evening. Now, before I go on, I have to say that Frankfurt did outdo itself. The technology needed for the show was impressive and the high-tech video screen shaped like Frankfurt's skyline like no other. However, the show itself seemed like an afterthought: "Well Jörg, now that we have this giant video screen, what should we do with it". The first 20 minutes of the show was a timeline of Germany's history since the resurrection and tearing down of the Berlin wall. These moments were the most emotionally wrenching of the show and allowed the crowd to collectively experience the ups and downs of its history, producing a sense of togetherness, even brief moments of rare German patriotism. However, all tender feelings were shattered by an immediate appearance of interpretive dancers, bright flashing lights, rave music and jet skiers on the main. I'm a fan of chaos, however even this was too much for me to handle. The next 40 minutes was a conglomerate of different music and entertainment styles with absolutely no, from what I could tell, transition from one stage to the next stage or crescendo to the show. As soon the spectator could even comprehend having an emotion the next phase of the show would start, leaving incomplete feelings, dangling and struggling to transition.

 

The show ended with a bang: once the smoke from the short firework show dissipated, the audience left impressed, a little dazed, stunned and maybe confused about what had just happened.

(c) Antoine Le Minh

From Hauptbahnhof down Kaiserstrasse and then a left on Elbastrasse. It's a little before 8 O' Clock and the tall narrow door located next to some shoddy motel-hotel has it's rolladen dow tightly shut. A little after 8:00 with a knock on the seedy door, it is opened by a bearded man. Down into the dimly lit cellar we go.

Located in the Bahnhofsviertel, with no signs or windows, only a door, the Kinly Bar is probably one of the Frankfurt's best kept non-secrets. With perfectly mixed cocktails replacing moonshine the dark basement replicates prohibition era underground bars and speakeasys.

(c) kinlybar.com

The atmosphere is familiar from the start. Simple tables and chairs, enough space to fit probably no more than 60 persons. The quirks lie in the little details. Old stereophones and tiny taxidermied rodents with hats on the wall.  One crystal clear, flawless block of ice on the counter (which is created by way of an interesting process in itself and worth reading up on). The staff: 3 men simultaneously chipping at the giant ice block, creating cocktails, mixing, serving and attending to the the guests.

Seriously -  this picture captures perfectly the omninous door that does not look like a bar.
Source: bonussmile.wordpress.com

It being my first time there, it seemed like Kinly Bar has a its regulars. Many, who streamed into the bar greeted the bartenders with jovial pats on the back and handshakes. Even newcomers are treated as part of the community. 

The drinks - for which Kinly Bar has received much recognition for and is in the running for best cocktail Frankfurt - are an experience in themselves. Not just a sensory explosion of the tastebuds, but also fun for the eye. Many of the drinks on the menu are served in special glasware and containers pertaining to the theme of the drink. Of the first round of the drinks, the Kayacolada was the most extravagant. It was served in a wooden box that was filled with smoke. When the box is opened, the smoke billows out and around you to reveal you cocktail sitting in a coconut shell.

I admittedly am not one for cocktails usually. I'm a big beer drinker and tend to stay away from "sweet" drinks. Also, not being an expert, many of the spirits listed on the menu do not mean anything to me. For those of you in a similar situation, no need to shy away from the Kinly Bar! You can simply tell ask one of the gentlemen for help. Just tell them what sort of flavors you like one the and they will concoct a drink "tailor-made" for you. 

My conclusion: After four hours underground, I left a little tipsy and very pleased. 

The ice block (c)Felix Schmitt

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/12524739/?claim=c7mv5ta82r2">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>The extremely intelligent Frankfurt style enthusiast and image consultant, Dr. Jonela Hoxhaj met up with me to talk about the psychology of style and her long term passion. She came whizzing in on her bike, looking absolutely fabulous in her golden colored  dress. At first, her look seems effortless, but when you catch a glimpse of the small playful details, you realize that there is an incredible amount of thought that goes into her look. Take for example the small ice cream cone charmed necklace accenting her outfit for the day. Needless to say, the interview was very informative, proving that fashion is not a superficial matter.

(C) Style Nouveau  http://blog.style-nouveau.com/de

Dr. Jonela Hoxhaj is originally from Albania, but received her Doctorate in Germany, where she has practiced law for many years. Back during her lawyer days, she was frequently asked by friends, co-workers and acquaintances about her fabulous style and if she would provide style advice, which spawned the idea to turn her long-term passion into a business: Style Nouveau. 

(C) Style Nouveau  http://blog.style-nouveau.com/de

Style Nouveau offers many services in the realm of business and personal image & style consulting. Her customers are usually people who need to look fashionable / good for their jobs, work more than 60 hours a week and do not have time to worry about style, or simply want to improve their image. Things Jonela hears often: "I lost weight" or "I always pick the same things and I want to try something else." 

Jonela Hoxhaj's first concern is not necessarily fashion, but psychology. As she mentioned multiple times, you cannot force someone to wear whatever is fashionable, it must also fit to that person's personality. Fashion is a type of language or expression and must embody what the wearer wants to communicate about their personality.  However, she also notes that it is sometimes necessary to coax people out of their comfort zone, especially in Germany, even more so in Frankfurt. Often, she encounters people wanting to stick with what the masses wear and there is an overarching fear of stepping out of that norm. This of course is nonsense, because fashion as a form of expression should communicate something about personality. And every single person is an individual. 

(C) Style Nouveau  http://blog.style-nouveau.com/de

Dr. Hoxhaj's description of the Frankfurt style: afflicted with fear. Women wear obligatory pearl earrings, have expensive bags and mostly stick to black, white and grey tones. Men wear suits,expensive coats and  Burberry scarves. Although Germany has a huge textile industry, it is not reflected in the style and fashion of its population. In comparison to countries like Italy, where style is matter-of-fact and can be seen in every social tier, Germany is lagging. And the only solution seems to be a question of psychology again: don't be afraid to look and do something different. It seems that Frankfurt could learn from the Italians.  

Ultimately, her mission is to help bring people to a point where they can express themselves appropriately with their clothing.  

Make sure to check out the Style Nouveau blog, where Jonela Hoxhaj writes shares her thoughts style, travelling, lifestyle and much more.

And of course, a Frankfurt stylist has a few hot spots for eating and going out.  

1. Blumen
2. Margarete
3. Brasserie an der Altenoper
4. Logenhaus
5. The Parlour
6. Gibson

Including some favorite boutiques:

1.  First
2.  Pfüller 
3.  Hayashi for women
4.  Diehl & Diehl und Abaci for men

If there is any place to go in Frankfurt for specialty and rare purses, it is Ewa Lagan. With two stores on prime real estate in downtown Frankfurt,  Ewa Lagan is a true success story.  Ewa Lindinger, the storeowner, started with humble beginnings: she sold purses on ebay from home. She became so successful online that others starting coming to her to sell their purses for them. In 2007, after her two daughters left for school she seized the opportunity to open her first store. Since starting, her business model hasn't changed much,  but  the selection has. Ewa Lagan specializes in Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Hermes but also has a selection of purses from Prada, Givenchy, Bottega Veneta and others. Ewa Lindinger buys bags from Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Hermes and sells for customers for commission. In addition to bags, Ewa Lagan has many accesories to go along with that perfect bag.

Reflective of Frankfurt, Ewa Lagan has customers from all over the world, such as Vietnam, Austria, USA and the Middle East (just to name a few). While many of her customers are women in their 30s, she is starting to see many younger women and teenagers save for months or longer for the bag of their dreams.

Some trends she is noticing this season are backpacks and small crossover bags. One of the bestsellers in her store is the Chanel 2.55. According to Ewa, everyone should own one, and at this point it should really be considered a wardrobe staple.

Natalie Grott-Mess, the creative mind behind the label GROME DESIGN, is originally from Poland, and is very successful in her home country. If you visit GROME's website, you'll quickly notice that many of Grome's pieces have been featured in magazines like Harpar's Bazaar and InStyle Poland and her collections have been shown at  Fashion Week Poland. 

Grott-Mess started creating, sewing and designing clothing 20 years ag, but.founded GROME DESIGN  in Frankfurt in 2009. GROME clothing is created for confident and mature women, who want to draw attention through subtleties. Most of Natalie Grott-Mess's pieces have neutral and calming colors. Aside from the color palette, each collection is a bit different, making it hard to pinpoint GROME's specific traits. Her current collection is noticeably light and flowy, perfect for warm weather, while previous collections have leaned in the direction of urban.  As far as customers are concerned,  most of them are business women in their 30s.  Natalie sees it as a huge compliment of her work, when she has older customers. According to her, these women's knowledge of life and the confidence they exude is exactly what she wishes her clothing to embody. Her designs attempt to showcase a woman's feminity, without showing tons of skin. I would definitely check out some of her work on the website! 

Having a good deal of experience outside of  Frankfurt, Natalie has many comparisons to make, especially between Poland and Germany. In her opinion, German women are still timid with fashion. Escpecially in Frankfurt, most women tend to go for sporty clothing that doesn't show off their feminity. Whereas in Poland, women are not afraid to highlight their bodies and to express their sexuality. 

And of course, with years of experience also comes some advice to  young designers, who want to become successful. Natalie Grott-Mess has learned that you can't always do everything on your own. If you want to have great designs with fashion-foresight, you need to spend more time designing and less time sewing. It is important to be able to delegate and reduce your workload.  

Tucked away on Brückenstraße, POSH is truly a little gem of a shop. After seeing the inside, it doesn't come to much of a suprise that storeowner Marvin was a former Visual Merchandiser for Ralph Lauren. During my visit, the front-facing showroom was completely decked-out for summer in a jungle theme: wild prints, flashy colors, and flora. The colors and patterns of front showroom changes seasonally, but the calming neutral colors of the back room remain a constant. 

POSH is fresh on the market, and has only been in business for 2 months. It has always been Marvin's dream to have his own shop and Frankfurt was his city of choice to realize this dream. Frankfurt is not only his home, but there is a lot of money to be made in Frankfurt with its banks and big business. Marvin also believes that Frankfurt has style. While the RheinMain metropolitan is not Munich or Düsseldorf, Frankfurt knows how to dress, albeit very put-together, classic and slightly conservative. Yet, Marvin doesn't think these qualities are bad. His description of what he considers the quintessential Frankfurt-style: slim-cut jeans,  ballerina flats, a brand name polo or blouse, and an expensive handbag.  

Yet, his customers are always full of suprises. Sometimes the pieces that he considers "Frankfurt" do not sell and his customers are interested in the loud and colorful pieces. This unpredictable quality to Frankfurt has a lot to do with its internationality: many different cultures means many different fashion influences. As Marvin noted, one place to get a glimpse of this variety is the fleamarket on Saturdays. The conservative business look of Frankfurt seems to be gradually subsiding and Frankfurters are increasingly becoming more fashion-savvy and fashion-interested. 

Marvin chooses  to sell items in his store from labels that he likes to wear. To name a few labels: Concis (clean, minimal), Moschino (playful) and Iceberg (playful, but clean). In addition, POSH has their own label with clothing designed personally by Marvin. To sum it up, Marvin says he just likes to stock "nice things". That is the true concept behind POSH.

One trend that Marvin has noticed after some years of experience in the fashion industry, is that there are no real rules to fashion anymore. With the dawn of street-style and blogging the only thing that matters is variety, as it should, because that is what makes fashion fun. 

Everyone has that one pair of favorite jeans, because, well, they are just perfect. They sit right and you look amazing in them. And when those jeans become worn-out or even worse...get a hole, you know that you will never find another pair that is quite the same. This is where #1 Jeans comes to the rescue.

#1 Jeans, or Natalie and Marc, started their business about 3 years ago. At first, they were just a couple of students who couldn't afford to buy new jeans and wanted a creative alternative to revamp their closets. Eventually, their intricate and unique stitching caught on with their friends, who also started coming to them with their worn-out denim. 

And their business continues to grow, especially with growing interest in and demand for sustainable and upcycled clothing. Not only do they receive jeans from customers in the Frankfurt Rhein-Main region, but received attention nationally. There isn't a hole too big for Natalie and Marc. Take a look at their website, you'll see that they've even repaired practically butt-less jeans. 

You can ship them your old jeans or personally come-by and discuss what look you want. Color combinations, stitching patterns, and leaving a couple stylish holes are all up to the customer. While both Natalie and Marc admitted that not all color combinations are what they would personally choose, each pair of jeans  is repaired with love or so they also like them. I personally prefer the  neutral-colored stitching with grey, black and white. #1 Jeans has a variety of customers ranging from mommies bringing their children's jeans, to opas wanting some holes fixed and students interested in ethical/sustainable clothing.

Advice for upcoming deisgners: Marc and Natalie believe that sometimes the best ideas are the simple ones and that you have to go against trends to be a trendsetter. 

And of course, being long-term Frankfurt inhabitants, Natalie and Marc had a few location suggestions:

• Robert Johnson in Offenbach
• Neglected Grassland 
• Yachtclub 
• CLUBKELLER
• Moloko

Also of note, their studio/store-front serves not only as a place where they work, but also as a little art gallery, where artist friends can exhibit their work. While I visited they had a photography exhibit from a friend on display.

I attended the More than Fashion event, despite the down-pour that day. It was worth it. Sonja Eismann, editor and founder of Missy Magazine and author of the Absolute Fashion, and Anne Jung, campaign coordinator of #untragbar, discussed the role of fashion in life and throughout history (as laid out in her book), including current ethical topics concerning the mass-consumption of fashion.  Here are some main points from the discussion:

• Fashion serves as a way to identify and differentiate yourself with/from a certain group and to display your personal identity.
• "Fashion" was once for the upper-class, but has become democratized and is available to the masses thanks to large department stores that sell inexpensive clothing. 
• This mass-consumption of fashion has created a clothing industry that is ethically questionable due to the wages that large clothing stores pay the workers sewing and producing the clothing.
• According to Anne Jung there is no easy and clear solution to the problem. What we can do actively is not tolerate that clothing be produced under unethical conditions.
• One alternative to getting your clothing from large superstores is purchasing second-hand clothing.  

Speaking of second-hand clothing, the discussion was followed by a clothing swap.Clothing swaps are great opportunities to add new fashionable and unique pieces to your wardrobe without opening your wallet. They are becoming increasingly popular and you can find annual and monthly swaps in most large cities. Every person who attended the discussion had the opportunity to bring  5-7 pieces of clothing to trade.  Because I am trying to down-size my closet, I brought pieces for the swap, but didn't take anything home, although some items definitely caught my eye. All-in-all is was an interesting, informative and fun event!

 The event description taken from the Facebook Event Page: 

" Mode ist Alltagsgegenstand – notwendig und praktisch, aber auch sinnlich und kunstvoll. Sie dient der Verhüllung des Körpers, fungiert als Distinktionsmerkmal, markiert Geschlechter- und Gruppenzugehörigkeit und sozialen Status. Sie spielt mit Gender und Sex und kann zugleich zum Unterdrückungsmerkmal werden. Mode ist Kunst, ihre MacherInnen Ikonen des Stils wie Coco Chanel oder Elsa Schiaparelli, sie ist Ausdruck gesellschaftlicher Veränderungen, wie etwa der Minirock von Mary Quant oder der Hosen-Anzug von Jil Sander. Mode ist ein „Tummelplatz für Individuen“ (Georg Simmel) und zugleich die größte Plattform des Konformismus und der Normierung. Mode ist sinnlich und spielerisch und zugleich eine gigantische Wirtschaftsmaschinerie mit mehr als prekären Produktions-strukturen. Mode ist: more than fashion!

Im Anschluss an die Diskussion laden wir zur Kleidertauschparty und Fashion-Disco: jeder bringt 5–7 gewaschene Kleiderstücke mit, die noch gut tragbar sind, aber nicht mehr gern selber getragen werden, und nimmt sich mit, was gefällt und passt. Neben Damenkleidung (wenn möglich mit Kleiderbügel!), Schuhen, Taschen und Accessoires ist auch Herrenkleidung gern gesehen. Dazu legt Klaus Walter auf."

For all of those interested in fashion and photography, I suggest you visit the Frankfurt Fotografie Forum's Viviane Sassen In and Out of Fashion exhibit.

Dutch photographer Viviane Sassen has a very unique way of capturing fashion.  Her photographs at first glance are confusing, and require a second or third look before the eye can make out what was photographed. Most of the scenes are abstract, displaying contorted bodies and structural elements in the background so that the model and the clothing are not the focus, but part of the backdrop. I personally really enjoyed just staring and getting caught up in the photographs details and layers! My favorite below: