Berlin is slowly but surely establishing itself as one of the top global catwalks for the bold and the beautiful of the world of high fashion – and the global financial crisis seems to be doing nothing to slow it down.

For the fifth time, up-and-coming fashion designers are meeting in the German capital to present selections from their latest collections at the Berlin Fashion Week, which is attracting increasing interest from the international fashion scene.

Maia Guarnaccia, vice president at IMG Fashion Europe, which organises the fashion week in Berlin as well as similar events in New York, Miami and Amsterdam, said last year marked a turning point for Berlin.

“Since July (last year) people are now calling us to be here,” he said, adding that it used to be the other way around.

“Berlin still is an oasis,” Guarnaccia said. “Because it is more accessible” than other fashion capitals like Paris, London or Milan, where the cost of living as well as production and rents are a lot higher, he said. This, he said, attracts young designers especially in a time of global economic recession.

“People get more creative in times of a crisis,” he said, having also worked for British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood in the past.

One of the fast-rising stars is designer Pablo Ramirez. Born in Buenos Aires in 1971, Berlin marks one of his first international shows.

“Berlin is another important door to Europe,” Ramirez said after the show. He was invited to come to Berlin after winning top fashion awards in Argentina. “I’m very nervous and excited,” he said.

His summer 2010 collection featured mainly elegant black dresses and suits and was accompanied by almost melancholy sounding strings.

It was followed by a bright, colourful and upbeat show by South African designers Jacques van der Watt and Danica Lepen with their Black Coffee label — which featured red, blue and red silky smooth wrap-around dresses adorned with golden laces.

A few minutes walk away from the main venue, another show launched in a big white tent set up at the heart of the city, next to the opera house. The German natural clothing brand Hessnatur show is the latest collection with other ecological designers in several rooms of Berlin’s famous Adlon Hotel. 

Hessnatur was founded more than 30 years ago by environmentalist Heinz Hess and won over designer Miquel Adrover as creative director in 2007. Hessnatur decided to show in Berlin after his gig at last year’s the New York Fashion Week triggered a wave of media interest. “Requests have risen brutally,” said Chief Executive Wolf Luedge.

Why so busy? Well, actress Julia Roberts recently ordered some clothes for her next movie and Vogue just did a photo shooting with Cameron Diaz wearing Hessnatur’s frocks.

While the future looks bright for the company, there is still a great deal of uncertainty. Hessnatur is part of German retail and tourism group Arcandor which filed for insolvency last month.

Luedge could not say what would happen to his company now, but said: “Hessnatur will come out of this one unharmed. I am not worried. Not at all.”

IMG’s Guarnaccia added more optimism. Berlin would make its way, he said: ”The success will be a blend of German brands, established designers and newcomers.”

Trying to second guess reaction to news during this financial crisis has been a fraught exercise and the U.S. Treasury may have a few advisers playing game theory to assess the impact of results from bank stress tests.

The tests are an attempt to determine which banks can survive more trouble, and who can’t. And how big any balance sheet holes might be. The results are due out on May 4.

If the results look too good, the process will look like a whitewash. Too negative, and it will destabilise still-jumpy markets. Yet showing up problems at one or a few banks could hang them out to dry.

The plan may have been to keep results secret, but that’s unrealistic. Shares in Britain’s Barclays soared last month when its regulator gave it an all-clear. That boosted all the UK sector, but then Barclays was almost alone in the spotlight — its rivals had either already been bailed out or had comfortable capital positions.

In the U.S., there are 19 banks to handle. It could be a PR nightmare and maybe one policymakers should have seen coming. Tim Geithner may end up on the back foot, just as he tried to get ahead of the crisis.

Or he may just opt to play hardball with the weaker banks. At least a transparent process will remove uncertainty from the stronger names.

Japanese stocks are sinking towards levels unseen since 1982, sending alarmed government officials scurrying to come up with some way of propping them up.

 Officials are looking at steps to support stocks after the plunge, which has taken the benchmark Nikkei to within sight of a 26-year low hit last October.

That slices into the value of huge share portfolios held by Japanese banks and erodes their capital just when the economy needs them to boost lending.

Among proposals being considered is setting up a stock-buying agency as Japan did in the mid-1960s, which follows another plan for the government to buy up to 20 trillion yen in shares from banks -- a plan currently stalled in parliament.

The latest suggestion, in a newspaper on Thursday, is for the Bank of Japan to be pushed into buying stock exchange-traded funds.

Though market players say stock buying by government agencies might help a little, most remain wary with the Japanese market slide part of a global criiss.

"These stock plans may buy a bit of time, but without enacting a decisive economic stimulus package simultaneously they won't be really effective," Takahiko Murai, general manager of equities at Nozomi Securities, told me.

Others are harsher, noting the dire economic state and paralysis in a divided parliament under unpopular Prime Minister Taro Aso, with an increasingly strong opposition determined to delay policy as it eyes an election soon.

"We don't need more money," said one fund manager. "We need a change of leadership."

The Nikkei gave all the proposals a cold shoulder and edged down on Thursday, bringing its losses -- after the worst post-War decline ever last year -- for calendar 2009 to more than 15 percent, on top of a record 42 percent slide last year.

Photo credits: Kim Kyung Hoon