Our neighbourhood

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You can sense it in the air the moment you step out of the Hotel Indigo Dusseldorf - Victoriaplatz and onto the tree-lined Kaiserswerther Straße. This is a fashion forward quarter which prides itself on its authenticity and flair, a district whose catwalks and workshops have helped create fashions worn across half of Europe and whose local residents are rightly proud of that fact.

It all began with the Igedo. This homegrown company took the bold step of launching the world’s biggest fashion fair in the neighbourhood in 1949. Dusseldorf had been associated with fashion since the 18th century, but it was the advent of Igedo that turbo-charged its passion. Igedo exerted a magnetic attraction on fashionistas, designers and buyers, who flocked to discuss new trends, show off samples and cut deals.

The evidence for this great love affair with fashion is everywhere: German punk legends Die Toten Hosen christened Dusseldorf the ‘Modestadt’ (Fashion City), supermodel and designer Claudia Schiffer was discovered here, and there has long been an expression in the fashion industry that you “look in Berlin and buy in Dusseldorf.” In 1983, the first order rooms for fashion agencies and manufacturers started to appear in the area, and there are now showrooms and stores at every turn: hundreds lie on the Kaiserswerther Straße alone, with dozens more along the waterfront Cecilienallee.

Over on Cecilienallee, meanwhile, there’s the biannual The Gallery event, a bustling, spirited affair at which hundreds of collections are shown off to the industry, with buyers flying in from around the world.

You’ll find the spirit of pride and dedication in the neighbourhood’s fantastic independent shops. Just around the corner from the Hotel Indigo Dusseldorf-Victoriaplatz, there are organic butchers and bakeries and family-owned delicatessens and greengrocers. In nearby side streets, meanwhile, you’ll find bike shops, antiques dealers, jewellery designers, tailors, bookstores, beauticians and children’s crafts studios. There are chocolatiers selling exquisite truffles, the city’s oldest ice cream parlour (Da Forno on Schwerinstrasse), and even a superb magic shop. But for all the imagination and energy poured into these stores, fashion is still this neighborhood’s first and most enduring love.

Back at the Hotel Indigo Dusseldorf-Victoriaplatz, the area’s spirit is celebrated in a series of murals depicting the fashion industry’s growth decade by decade, showing off its evolution and renewal. This place has fashion in the blood: the area has lived and breathed the business for its whole modern history, and glamour, beauty and craft are woven into its very core. As it’s well dressed denizens are happy to recognize, this truly is the fashion forward quarter.