From Paris, via Berlin, to Frankfurt and now worldwide. Over the last two decades since its launch, Neonyt has developed into the most important B2B community platform for fashion, sustainability, and innovation.
The international fashion business is big, as is the responsibility of the event as an order platform and trend spotter in the sustainability sector, and the interest in the brand around the world.
Messe Frankfurt has recognised the potential of Neonyt as a beacon and pioneer, and plans to roll out the event internationally. The next German edition of this B2B event will be held in Düsseldorf from January 28-30, 2023. Over the last two decades, Neonyt has become an important B2B community platform for fashion, sustainability, and innovation.
Messe Frankfurt began investing in sustainable textiles and fashion at an early stage. There was already a rapidly expanding ‘green’ fashion market when the event now called Neonyt moved from France to Germany in 2012. At that time, environmentally friendly concepts were in demand and supported by the trade, buyers, the industry, and political stakeholders. Together with designer brands, fashion producers, NGOs, established brands, and newcomers, the forerunners of Neonyt, the Ethical Fashion Show Berlin and the Greenshowroom Berlin, were driving forces for a revolution in terms of value and system in the German capital.
In 2019, the two events were merged under the new name, ‘Neonyt’. Today, Neonyt is the synonym for a fundamental process of transformation in the textile and fashion sector. The convenient position of Germany in the heart of Europe and, therefore, its excellent logistical circumstances have proved to be advantageous for Neonyt as the hub of the sustainable textile and fashion business.
“There continues to be no doubt about the potential of the sustainability community, and much has happened, especially over the last two years. Consequently, we must recalibrate our concepts and events. Given that many of today’s collections are only accessible to limited target groups, one of the biggest challenges is to make sustainable fashion suitable for the retail sector, too”, said Olaf Schmidt, vice president textiles & textile technologies, Messe Frankfurt. “Our strength in the textile sector is based, inter alia, on the great expertise of the international Texpertise Network of Messe Frankfurt. With around 60 events around the world, around 22,000 exhibitors and more than half a million visitors, we not only generate impulses for the whole textile value chain but are also in continuous and close contact with all relevant stakeholders. And they have told us in no uncertain terms that it is essential that Neonyt be expanded not only as a marketing and business platform but also with regard to its impact on sustainability in the order business. We now plan to take account of all this and develop the brand accordingly.”
Neonyt will take place as a B2B event in Düsseldorf from January 2023. Additional satellite events around the world are also in planning. Messe Frankfurt is taking the first step in Germany in cooperation with Igedo Company, which means: Igedo has assumed immediate responsibility for the operative planning and implementation of Neonyt in Düsseldorf. Since being founded in 1949, Igedo has gathered an extraordinary degree of expertise in the fashion sector and, with its events in Düsseldorf, plays a firmly established role on the international order scene at least twice a year.
In the future, Neonyt will be held as a licenced event concurrently with the FASHN ROOMS in the fashion metropolis of Düsseldorf, thus making Neonyt part of a successful international combination of some 600 international brands. The strictly sustainable spectrum to be seen at Neonyt will be held alongside the agencies & premium brands (showroom concept), avantgarde, design & contemporary and accessories & shoes segments of Fashn Rooms. This will benefit not only exhibitors and trade visitors because Fashn Rooms in Düsseldorf is also renowned for its content-creator segment, which is in line with the community DNA of Neonyt and offers significant potential as a multiplier.
“We are delighted that the Igedo Company is joining forces with us”, said Olaf Schmidt. “Neonyt and its cross-sector community are in very good company in Düsseldorf, which will be of great benefit to the trade-fair landscape and the sustainable textile and fashion scene – this is where expertise and professionalism meet innovative spirit and stability.”
“We are, of course, very pleased to have the opportunity to work intensively on Neonyt’s next stage of development. At the same time, this not only reinforces the position of Düsseldorf as a fashion centre but also shows the extremely high regard in which the Igedo Company is held by the sector even 73 years after being founded. Now, we must roll up our sleeves and work together closely to achieve the next targets set for Neonyt in Düsseldorf”, said Ulrike Kähler (managing director) and Philipp Kronen (managing partner) of the Igedo Company in their joint statement on this exciting development in the fashion-fair landscape.
It is common practice to cooperate with well-established companies and licensees to test new markets and locations, as well as to profit from the pooling of expertise. Messe Frankfurt already has many such (international) success stories in its portfolio, especially in the textile sector. By expanding Neonyt, the Texpertise Network is successfully boosting the unceasing efforts of Messe Frankfurt in the direction of sustainability and continues to emphasise the collaboration with the United Nations.
Most recently at the annual meeting of the Conscious Fashion and Lifestyle Network in New York, an international network of representatives from within the fashion and lifestyle sector came together with the media, as well as representatives of member governments and UN institutions, at the headquarters of the United Nations. Representatives of Messe Frankfurt also participated in their discussions on the importance of partnerships and cooperation for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
The success of ‘Neonyt Lab’, the first direct-to-consumer (D2C) event, which attracted visitors from 22 countries in June 2022, has encouraged Messe Frankfurt to hold more events of this kind in Frankfurt. The internationalisation of the brand and the decision to hold Neonyt as a B2B event in Düsseldorf in the future will by no means result in a lack of commitment to Frankfurt. With its local fashion and design community and numerous creative centres and sustainability movements, the metropolis on the Main River is ideally placed to boost the mega-theme of sustainability and to ensure consumers play a direct role in the fashion debate.
The international and multi-disciplinary Fashionsustain conference is a must for all players from the textile and fashion industry wanting to know more about the latest technological innovations and sustainable developments. Fashionsustain is a platform for the interaction of collaboration and competition – important components for innovative, sustainable technologies that make sustainable business models and new and old markets visible to the whole industry.
The next Fashionsustain will be held concurrently with the Fashn Rooms in Düsseldorf in January 2023. Messe Frankfurt is also (once again) planning more international spin-offs from the conference. Fashionsustain has already been held successfully several times outside Germany in the past: in 2018 at Texworld Paris and, in the following year, when the spin-offs of the conference held in New York on the occasion of Texworld USA & Apparel Sourcing USA, in Los Angeles, parallel to the LA Fashion Festival, and in Shanghai during the Intertextile Shanghai Apparel Fabrics, gave a boost to the sustainability discussion outside Europe – a success that Messe Frankfurt planned to continue but had to postpone due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now, these international efforts are being resumed by Messe Frankfurt with the aim of illuminating the scalability of innovative technologies and the power of the sustainable textile and fashion sector during relevant industrial and lifestyle events at home and abroad.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (NB)
