International fashion fairs Modefabriek and Seek to get makeovers

In the ever-changing landscape of fashion trade shows, it has seemingly become imperative to continuously adapt to the rapidly changing needs of buyers and brands, as already evidenced in recent mergers and evolving setups of international fairs. The same is to remain true for the upcoming trade show season, when it will be possible to see new faces for both Dutch fair Modefabriek and its German counterpart Seek.

For Modefabriek, due to take place January 26 and 27, this will take shape in the form of a new location, as well as several new features. “The renovation brings new energy,” fair co-founder and creative director, Caroline Krouwels, told FashionUnited. In its new home of Expo Greater Amsterdam in Vijfhuizen, a village in the Netherlands, Modefabriek will offer brands a new stand design that aims to present a more “modular system that offers much more variety” and reflects the layout of a department store.

Speaking on the new format, Krouwels said: “After 21 years at RAI Amsterdam, the location, as beautiful and familiar as it was, was beginning to feel limited. The concept was gradually losing its vitality; the dynamism had run out – and this at a time when the industry was already facing so many difficulties. We felt it, and so did our exhibitors and visitors. So we looked for a new, attractive, central location where we could shape a renewed, fresh and up-to-date Modefabriek. This has set everything in motion.”

Germany’s Seek has also found a new location, at the five-floor event space on Oranienstrasse, a famed street in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district. It was important to organisers to remain in the fair’s birth place, as stated by sales manager Damien Winpenny, who called Berlin “one of the most authentic and honest places in Europe”. This new location will offer large windows, high ceilings and open spaces to present products, as well as smaller rooms for private order appointments – a format Seek said would provide brands and agencies with the opportunity to curate and target specific audiences.

It will also house an entirely new Seek concept based on concentrated and coherent brand scenarios. On this, Seek team member Elli Moreno said: "It's not the right time for a one-size-fits-all approach. The needs, strategies, objectives and timelines of our exhibitors and visitors are more diverse than ever before. Two set-in-stone days and one big location hosting them all are just not the Zeitgeist anymore. Brands and agencies get together and create smaller, more intimate showroom concepts. The Conscious Club is a close-knit community that thrives from exchange, collaboration and togetherness. Classic calendars as well as designs of mens- and womenswear become blurred. Outdoor and function wear is part of not just streetwear culture any more. We need to react to these trends and offer modular options and dates."

With this, Seek is planning to step back from the traditional trade show calendar and fashion week schedule, with its autumn/winter 2025/26 show to now take place at the beginning of January 2025, ahead of other European trade show dates and Berlin Fashion Week. In her own statement, Seek’s Marie-Luise Ahlers, said: "With the new concept we're acting on and expressing what everyone's thinking. The timelines, fashion weeks as well as trade shows and events in Europe are more and more overlapping. We have to stop thinking in black and white, outdated calendars and segments, and dictating when brands and agencies have to write orders and close the books. Flexibility, independence, the very honest, loyal relationships with our exhibitors and visitors and down-to-earthness are our absolute USPs, which we will now benefit from."