THE 9 FESTIVAL IN VIENNA

...celebrating vibrant Viennese fashion

For 9 years now, Unit F büro für mode has been pursuing a committed support strategy that has successfully accompanied many Austrian fashion designers along their way towards internationalisation. It has been the main incentive for the team around Ulrike Tschabitzer-Handler and Andreas Oberkanins in creating this festival to present the potential of the local fashion industry to an interested audience. During the first few years of their support activities, the cellar space of Unit F büro für mode was the setting of these small but exquisite presentations to a selected audience. Since 2002, a continuous progression has taken place and the presentation platform has been growing at a rapid pace: the invitation-only gala at the Wien Museum became the Austrian Fashion Week, which in the three years to follow took place at the Kunsthalle Wien and at selected locations in Vienna. Through this development an ever-growing audience could be made enthusiastic and passionate about fashion and Austrian fashion design.

Since 2006, Unit F büro für mode have been the organisers of the festival for fashion & photography – a major event with a broad programme range, held at various locations across Vienna. The festival has grown into a visualisation platform for contemporary national and international fashion design. This platform provides an essential contribution to the vibrant and internationally successful design scene and has been receiving excellent media response since its inception.

The 9 festival for fashion & photography presents itself famously versatile: shows, photography, exhibitions, installations and shopping and for the first time a conference on the topic of “Business of Fashion” are the core themes of the festival, which will spread out across the whole town and make Vienna’s culture and fashion scene hold its breath for a week.

Apart from the programme line-up of events organised by Unit F büro für mode, which has successfully been established over the years, since 2008 an increasing number of guest events has been included in the programme as a structural as well as contentual expansion of the festival.

Through the collaboration with partners, who conceive, develop and organise their projects independently, the festival is supposed to become more inclusive and to represent the creative potential of the fashion industry in Vienna in its entire diversity.
Moreover, these outsourced partners and curators also act as multipliers, because they expand the immediate target audience which the festival reaches through its contentual direction.

9 festival for fashion & photography