COVER STORY

Faces behind 202030 - The Berlin Fashion Summit: Max Gilgenmann

with Max Gilgenmann

Be a part of sustainable fashion culture with Max Gilgenmann

11 AUGUST ‘22

6 minutes

#COVERSTORY

Meet Max, the co-creator of 202030 Berlin Fashion Summit and what inspires him! Max Gilgenmann has a background in fashion, sustainability and in his own words “co-evolution.” 

Words by Varnika Srivastava

Be a part of sustainable fashion culture with Max Gilgenmann
Image source: NEONYT

He follows the infamous concept of the three pillars but sees the need to add a fourth dimension that a) connects them and b) enables the translation from theory into practice; and that fourth dimension is culture, especially consumption culture. His first contact with sustainability was through his parents, who were extremely politically active. However, his first conscious encounter with sustainability was during his fashion design education in the UK, when he came across a novel fibre, bamboo, and the environmental and health claims attached to it, and that greatly piqued his interest.



Max says that his strongest trigger is his belief that fashion can positively impact our glocal societies and planetary ecosystems by becoming a net positive industry through material, cultural & business model innovation. He says that it is important that fashion uses its status as a cultural influencer and trendsetter to find, market, and establish new consumption cultures together with the customers as well as new work cultures alongside the global value chains with their supply partners.


Be a part of sustainable fashion culture with Max Gilgenmann

Photographer: Tomaso Baldessarini


Where does so much inspiration come from?

His inspiration for the Berlin summit came from the fact that it was the grand opportunity to co-create his own new format together with some of his favourite experts and pioneers in fashionable sustainability.

He also credits the city of Berlin itself for co-creating a new dynamic and openness for collaboration within the local ecosystems that really enable them to work in a holistic fashion to their sustainability approaches. He believes that the Berlin fashion week can accelerate the transformation towards regeneration and have a positive impact on planetary ecosystems.


His goal for the Berlin Fashion summit is to increase the reach of the summit especially SMEs, and industry stakeholders, which in return shall help degrowing (and perspectively phase-out) consumption of non-renewable resources as well as fairly re-organizing value chains globally. Max feels that the greed of some businesses is his biggest challenge and says that unlearning current business and marketing strategies and models in order to be ready to embrace all the opportunities that come with the current disruptions and the continuing digitisation has to be that way we move on ahead. 


 For choosing the topics of the workshops, he says that they try to find good compromises between the most urgent topics and the readiness of target groups. They always aim to balance the need for being progressive in terms of the goals and how holistic the topics are and if they are also pragmatic in terms of accessibility and application. 


Come to the event and discover what Max and the other co-founders built, get inspired by their words and be ready to enhance your knowledge - save your spot here!


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