Fashion Goes on Tour : Clemens en August

These days you can’t afford to be ordinary. Luxury brands are having a hard time keeping their minimal brick and mortar shops with snooty sales assistants (can’t we just look?) open as we all start shopping online, and looking for deals on places like Gilt, the competition gets stiffer by the second. This past fashion week, we’ve seen how designers are trying to cope by substituting fashion shows with presentations resembling multimedia events or performance art shows… nowadays luxury brands might be skipping fashion week altogether and like Clemens en August skipping the traditional retail scheme all together.

Clemens en August founder, Alexander Brenninkmeijer (pictured left) started this line after his  business partner Kostas Murkdis left Munich for Berlin. Instead of just carrying on the same way, Alexander decided to stay with luxury fashion, but make it available at more affordable prices, for a limited time. Clemens en August goes on ‘tour’ like a rock concert  to ten cities all over the world. For two days they set up shop in an art or design gallery, an art museum, there you can shop, at a fraction of the price if it were available in a regular boutique or department store, it’s still not cheap, but the quality is just lovely, the clean lines, minimal fashion, many of the pieces perfect foundations for effortless chic. They’re able to do this because they don’t have rent, they don’t advertise, it’s all spread by word of mouth, and they’ve developed in the last few years a cult following with bands like Franz Fernindad and celebs like Sienna Miller and Lilly Cole.

I really like the collection, it’s a bit more subdued than what I normally wear, more elegant… is more like it, as I tried on a few pieces, like the cape which is available in black, plaid, watercolor, grey… and I think salmon, it was perfect, so nice, I almost walked out with it.

It was also nice to finally get out of the house, and meet with local bloggers, like Jerome from La Liste des Desderata and Judith from Frankfurt Fashion as well as Ulrich from fashionfreax (who I couldn’t get a photo of…) Initially I thought I’d stay maybe 30 minutes tops, but everyone was so nice, I stayed much, much longer. I was also taken by how approachable Alexander was… which is very refreshing.

Here are the ‘tour dates.’ Opening times 11 am – 8 pm.

FRANKFURT • DESIGNFFM, Hohenstaufenstraße 13-27 – Fri. 27, Sat. 28 March
VIENNA • MAK, Weiskirchnerstrasse 3, 1.Bezirk – Thu. 26, Fri. 27, Sat. 28 March
COLOGNE • Kölnischer Kunstverein, Hahnenstrasse 6 – Tue. 31 March, Wed 1, Thu 2 April
ZURICH • Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Limmatstrasse 270 – Thu. 2, Fri. 3, Sat. 4 April
LONDON •  20th Century Theatre, 291 Westbourne Grove , Notting Hill -Thu. 2, Fri. 3, Sat. 4 April
TOKYO • Eye of Gyre, 5-10-1 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku – Thu. 16, Fri. 17, Sat. 18, Sun. 19 April
BERLIN • Sprüth Magers, Oranienburger Strasse 18 – Thu. 23, Fri. 24, Sat. 25 April
HAMBURG • Produzentengalerie, Admiralitätsstrasse 71 – Thu. 23, Fri. 24, Sat. 25 April