“Fashion has always been a natural home for collaboration — because brands and designers don’t just sell products, they shape culture and identity,” says Kirsty Keoghan, General Manager European Fashion & Luxury at eBay. Sung-Joo Kim, Chief Visionairy Officer of MCM Worldwide and member of Fashion Council Germany’s Advisory Board, calls it “cultural alchemy,” blending creativity with heritage and modernity. In this text, we explore how joining forces in fashion, through the exchange of knowledge, creativity, and resources, drives innovation and lasting change.

Fashion thrives on dialogue. It develops through the exchange of diverse ideas, cultures, and identities, as well as through creativity, sharing of practices, materials, and resources. In recent decades, this dialogue has increasingly occurred through collaborations — between designers, brands, institutions, and marketplaces.

One of the first major partnerships that ignited discussions about fashion collaborations in the modern era was the collection Karl Lagerfeld designed for H&M x Karl Lagerfeld in 2004. This collection not only made new luxury designs more accessible to a broader audience — it demonstrated how companies can challenge traditional hierarchies within the industry. Since then, collaborations have become a driving force in fashion, opening new perspectives and challenging conventions.

Louis Vuitton x Supreme brought heritage design into the world of streetwear, creating a cultural phenomenon that had buyers lining up outside stores; Prada x Adidas demonstrated how luxury and sportswear could merge seamlessly; partnerships like Balenciaga x Gucci proved that such individual houses could overcome their differences through shared creativity.

This creative spirit also thrives within the Fashion Council Germany network: collaborations such as KHY x Namilia, Sia Arnika and Ioannes, or Namilia x Ed Hardy, show how emerging German labels are partnering with international names, blending bold aesthetics and values.

As Sung-Joo Kim — Chief Visionairy Officer at MCM and a major supporter of Fashion Council Germany — explains, collaborations act as catalysts for innovation, bridging cultures, perspectives, and disciplines. “For me, they embody the spirit of East meets West: a dialogue between heritage and modernity to fuel both design and imagination,” she says. “It is, in essence, cultural alchemy at work.”

At the same time, knowledge partnerships such as Deloitte x Global Fashion Agenda (GFA) demonstrate how fashion companies and institutions are combining their expertise to drive change for a more sustainable future of the industry. Collaborations bring worlds together: luxury meets streetwear, new meets vintage, tradition meets innovation.

But what makes a collaboration truly successful? Kirsty Keoghan, General Manager European Fashion & Luxury at eBay and Fashion Council Germany’s official partner, explains: “Collaborations work best when they solve challenges the industry can’t tackle alone, whether that’s driving innovation, shifting perceptions, or making pre-loved fashion accessible to a broader audience. They bring together different kinds of expertise and resources to move things from idea to impact.”

Keoghan adds an example: “Through eBay Endless Runway in New York and London, we partnered with a number of designers, including Erdem, Altuzarra, and Moschino, to bring archival and pre-loved pieces back to the runway — redefining perceptions of pre-loved fashion.”

This collaborative spirit also lies at the heart of Fashion Council Germany. Over the past decade, our initiatives have helped to forge connections between established fashion houses and emerging talent, global companies and regional manufacturers through the exchange of ideas, resources and innovation.

Together with our official partner eBay, we have created new platforms for dialogue, creativity, learning, and circularity — including the exhibition format RAUM.Berlin and the conference METAMORPHOSIS, both held during Berlin Fashion Week, as well as the support programme for emerging designers, Fashion x Craft.

“Partnering with Fashion Council Germany is an important part of our vision to advance circularity in fashion,” says Keoghan. “As the pioneering pre-loved marketplace, eBay fosters innovation and creative solutions that make it easier for brands and consumers to engage in circular fashion.”

With initiatives like RAUM.Berlin and METAMORPHOSIS, Keoghan explains that the aim is to provide emerging designers with a platform and demonstrate how creative approaches align with a more conscious engagement with fashion — “highlighting that pre-loved can stand confidently next to new.”

Therefore, partnerships like FCG x eBay serve as prime examples: collaborations are not just about visibility or marketing but about joining forces to share knowledge and vision — essential elements for a future-oriented fashion ecosystem.

In times when the fashion industry faces challenges such as digital transformation, growing consumer expectations, and sustainability, it is now more important than ever to work together.

But, as Keoghan points out, there is one thing to keep in mind when partnering up: both parties need to have the same expectations and shared intent. “Collaboration only works when both sides are clear about the outcome and transparent about how to get there. Trust is built when those goals are measurable and aligned with common purpose.”

This shared purpose defines the partnerships Fashion Council Germany has built over the past ten years, collaborating with international brands, research institutions, and cultural organisations.

Long-term allies such as eBay, H&M, MCM, the Swarovski Foundation, The King’s Foundation, or The PVH Foundation have supported initiatives that promote education, innovation, sustainability, and more.

Larger companies and organisations like these provide reach, experience, and infrastructure, while smaller labels working with them through these initiatives offer fresh perspectives and a close connection to new audiences.

“Large companies gain more than visibility from collaborating with emerging labels — they gain agility, fresh vision, renewed imagination and access to new audiences,” explains Sung-Joo Kim. “Early in my career at Bloomingdale’s under Marvin Traub, I learned that limitation often sharpens creativity while abundance can breed complacency. Scale does not define innovation; perspective does. Supporting smaller labels reminds us that fresh ideas often emerge from constraint, not comfort.” This balance between scale and experimentation is what allows genuine innovation to emerge.

But collaboration is not just strategic — it is deeply human. Kim adds: “It’s about empathy, trust, and shared purpose. Partnerships turn diversity into harmony and connect culture through creativity. For MCM, every collaboration reaffirms our belief that ‘Creativity is the New Power’ — a universal language that unites and inspires.”

Fashion Council Germany’s network of partnerships demonstrates the power of collaboration — when creativity meets strategy and ideas are shared openly, magic happens. By uniting different voices under a common vision, collaboration becomes more than just innovation: it becomes a way to shape identity, purpose, and the future of the fashion industry itself. It supports new talent and proves that creativity grows stronger when shared. Together, we are stronger. We are bolder. And we can truly make an impact.

This text is an excerpt from our 10-year Fashion Council Germany booklet, in which we reflect on a decade of shaping and advancing German fashion. Discover the full booklet and explore all the stories and highlights HERE.

Text by Ronja Hetland