The KaDaWe department store in Berlin

On a recent Tuesday, Best Shop, a boutique located in Mitte, Berlin’s edgy creative district, was bustling. Six hip shoppers surveyed the eclectic merchandise: a mix of avant-garde men’s and women’s casual clothes, unusual costume jewels, limited edition art books and cutting-edge German fashion magazines.

Heading for the fitting room, clutching an oversized sweatshirt by the Swedish designer Annika Berger, was Kostas, a fashion editor from Athens. He explained he was on one of the frequent trips he makes to Berlin for creative inspiration, which always involves a stop at Best Shop. “It is one of the few stores in Europe where you can find hard-to-source labels such as Annika Berger and, to me, one of the most fashion forward shops anywhere,” he said.

Sumi Ha, Best’s savvy proprietor, hopes that trade from Berlin’s steady influx of tourists will help ease the economic woes that have hurt retail sales across the German capital since the recession set in last autumn. “Sales have been very slow, and I really recognised a downturn before Christmas,” she said. “People in Berlin consume by looking, not spending. There are so many artists living here.”

Berlin’s artist community may be cash-strapped but the work they produce, showcased in the city’s galleries and its Museum Island district, means that, despite the credit crunch, Berlin continues to attract well-heeled collectors and travellers who like to shop.

Although the deserted feel of the luxury goods thoroughfare Friedrichstrasse would indicate a decline in tourist spending, members of the fashion community on Mulackstrasse, a charming Mitte shopping avenue featuring five boutiques operated by home-grown Berlin fashion labels, are sanguine.

Take Leyla Piedayesh, who runs La La Berlin, a knitwear-focused ready-to-wear line with fans such as Claudia Schiffer and Mischa Barton. “I feel no financial loss – knock wood,” she said. Piedayesh is pushing ahead with plans to open a La La Berlin children’s wear boutique in September, though she does concede that Berlin’s notoriously cheap rents will help her expansion plans.

Kai Seifried, who runs a shop called Starstyling and produces a women’s wear collection with his wife Katja Schlegel, estimates that tourists make up 70 per cent of his customers. He says demand from Japan and Topshop – where a limited edition Starstyling T-shirt line is now sold – recently helped him double the size of the boutique. Starstyling’s low prices for some items also keep business brisk. “Prices range from €3 for a small button,” said Seifried, gesturing towards a bowl of perky, fabric-covered badges resting by the till, to €470 for the collection’s “masterpiece”: a beige linen cloak embellished with fluorescent pink and white fabric appliqués. “You can wear it as a shawl or use it to cover a table,” said Seifried, draping it over his shoulder.

He’s not the only retailer thinking creatively. At KaDeWe, Berlin’s landmark department store and symbol of Germany’s postwar Wirtschaftswunder, or economic miracle, shoppers were busy inspecting accessibly priced Arabic-themed homeware such as kilns, crockery and soft furnishings while a Berber craftsman displayed an age-old iron furniture-making technique.

Set up between a Gucci concession and KaDeWe’s sprawling sleek beauty hall, this special Moroccan exhibition exemplified the department store’s new strategy to entertain shoppers during the economic lull. “We are trying very hard to inspire our customers, whether they are tourists or people from Berlin,” explained Petra Fladenhofer of KaDeWe. “We have to provide an atmosphere where people feel comfortable about staying in our shop and buying our products without feeling guilty about spending money.”

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Details

www.bestshop-berlin.de
www.kadewe.de
www.lalaberlin.com
www.starstyling.net