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The Trade Fair and its new Image

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The Trade Fair and its new Image

“Achieving airiness is often the hardest thing to do,” says Stefan Laskowski. Though there was absolutely nothing “airy” about the development process because painfully achieved interim results ran the risk of being “crunched” by the next stage in the process.

No less creative but all the more ephemeral is the ice boot by Thomas Tremml.

“This style is a reflection, as it were, of one day but by no means as ephemeral as yesterday‘s newspaper,” says Adriana Teldaldi.

“You need lots of “dough” for quality shoes,” as Silke Bunde knows. She has taken her brief literally by producing a perfectly kneaded style.

New campaign, new image. “Inspiration to go” is the dynamic claim that GDS makes for this season’s trade fair. And with it the trade fair fulfils precisely the task it has set itself.

Trend-focused, visionary, directional. GDS has successfully embraced these attributes banking on an extremely flexible concept that takes current market developments just as much into consideration as it does trade visitors’ wishes and needs. Especially over the past two to three years the fair has radically changed and re-positioned themselves in terms of image, focus and new themed segments.Now the GDS wants to communicate what they are all about more clearly to the world; in a more modern, emotional and smarter manner.

Setting the Scene for Ideas
One of the leading international shoe trade fairs, GDS not only aims to be a marketplace where brands and decision-makers meet. More than this it also focuses on setting the scene for new ideas - the ideas underlying each designer’s draft that serve as a first step for developing the collection to be presented at the trade fair and shown off to its best advantage thanks to optimum stand architecture and perfect-fit themed worlds. The Cologne agency Feuerland commissioned here by GDS has made setting the scene for ideas the leitmotif of the new campaign. They asked four artists to artistically realize their respective vision of a shoe. “We chose four concrete ideas from a vast pool of initially quite abstract ideas,” says Karen Golz, CEO Consulting of the Feuerland agency, adding “then we started researching artists that were best able to realise this idea. However, we left the implementation itself to the artists, all the more as our campaign especially emphasises this creative freedom.” This also gave rise to the idea of having the shoes produced from unusual materials showing that shoe designers also draw on inspirations completely alien to the footwear sector. This is how four unique and inspiring artistic creations came into being: Floating pumps from feathers as well as shoes in tabloid newspaper, a rugged boot in clear ice as well as sneakers faithfully reproduced from kneading dough. These are featured in the images and on the banners of the current GDS campaign, serving as hallmarks for the exciting new pitch of the trade fair.

GDS’ new claim “Inspiration to go” can be taken literally in not one but two ways. On the one hand, it refers to the compact information and associated inspirations that trade fair visitors can “take away” right from the fair – fast, condensed and to the point. On the other, it implies the dynamic further development of the trade fair that is open for new things and which always also looks to the future, being basically a step ahead of its time. This also becomes evident in the new GDS styling reflected in all online and print media both nationally and internationally as well as at the fairgrounds themselves.

Text: Nicoletta Schaper
Photos: GDS

To the Artists