Berlin scores a hat-trick this season as homegrown style tradeshow Bread and Butter returns from its sabbatical to join Mercedes Benz Berlin Fashion Week and Premium in hosting five days of fashion frenzy around the city. This news is probably met with an apathetic shrug by most Berliners, or perhaps resentment by the few who dislike the idea of stilletoed fashionistas descending on their city but Berlin is becoming a style landmark, so learn to appreciate it, ye sceptics. Fashion Week itself tends to be a pretty esoteric event but Bread and Butter – returning home from four years in Barcelona – and Premium are both open to the public and each are throbbing hubs of international and local fashion. Bread and Butter will be held in the now-vacant hangars of Tempelhof airport and is probably the most important urban tradeshow in the world for anyone interested in streetwear and the people behind the brands.

Fashion design may be visual art’s more flamboyant cousin but Berliner Kunst is not without its own pretensions. A pithy article piqued my curiosity about a sound installation in Prenzlauer Berg’s cluster of late nineteenth century water towers, the highlight of which is a work called “34 turns” by the late Terry Fox. In the work, 34 trays filled with small piles of salt are placed in each of the identical outer chambers of the smaller water tower and they are supposedly meant to slowly absorb the moisture from the air – a process that is meant to be “at the threshold of audibility” according to the press release. I don’t really know what I expected but those salt crystals sure weren’t making much noise when I was around and after a few minutes of staring at a tray of watery sodium, I felt a bit duped.

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