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| It's Fair Time for YKK! |
| October 26, 2007 |
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There is a whole universe made of business to business events behind the so called "fashion world".
When you look at a garment, most of the time there's at least five or six suppliers involved in its realisation, even though you see only one brand on the label. |
That's because there are a lot of companies involved in the production of clothes that relate only to other companies involved in the process, and not to the final customer. So, for example, in a sweater the yarns used to produce the thread that makes the textile comes from one company, the zips and buttons come from another company...and so on. And how do fashion brands understand who is the best supplier in its field? Well, this is where the fairs step in!
Just like many other fields, the fashion world has its own fairs where all of the suppliers meet and present their products catalogue to the fashion brands that are obviously looking for the best quality supplier at the lowest price. So what you see when visiting a fair is lots of booths of lots of different supply companies. In every booth there's one or more professional vendors who know everything about the products their company produces, and are always willing to present their catalogue to you and find the best solution for your needs. This said, if you were to go to one of these fairs, who do you think you would meet in the section dedicated to fastenings? Most likely YKK, our partner for the accessories competition and leading multinational company in the fastenings field.
In Europe there are three main appointments that YKK, as all other companies involved, won't miss. That's the "Moda In" fair in Milan, the "Mod'amont" fair in Paris and "Fabric Start" in Munich. The latest editions of these three fairs took place in mid-late September, and it has become a tradition for YKK to display in a dedicated section of their booths some of the YKK accessories produced by ITS finalists. It's a very good way for them to show their clients what can be done with their fastenings with a bit of creativity!
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"Moda In" in Milan is a well renowned appointment celebrating 25 years of activity. Established in 1984 by the Italian Textile Association and by the Italian Federation for Textiles and Hats, it focuses on promoting Italian and European textile products in the world and has been growing ever since. The last edition saw 350 Italian companies and 125 international companies presenting their products to about 30,000 visitors, mostly insiders, press people and designers. A very good public to show your work to, if you are a young designer looking for visibility! YKK knows it and also knows that displaying a creative use of its fastenings can be inspiring for its clients to look beyond what the traditional use of fastenings is. Everyone's happy: YKK has a powerful tool to communicate the possible uses of its product, and ITS accessories designers have yet another opportunity to showcase their work in front of experts in the field.
Mod'amont is the "French answer" to Moda In. It takes place just outside Paris in a place called Villepinte, and if you're looking for buttons, buckles, zips, metallic and plastic trims, textile, embroidery, lace, braids and cords, fur, labels, badges, stickers, shoulder pads...basically, any kind of complement in the realisation of a garment, this is the right place. Here also, during the September edition, YKK had a dedicated area (and a very pretty one too!) in its booth where some YKK accessories seen at ITS#SIX were displayed. And again, just like at Moda In, the public visiting the fair was a very competent one. More than 18.000 insiders visited Mod'amont, making it another great opportunity for the ITS finalists to showcase their talent given by YKK.
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Last but not least, we would like to show you pictures of the YKK booth at the Munich Fabric Start Fair...a real ITS#SIX invasion! There was a whole wall with the kaleidoscope image, with a plasma screen at the center showing the kaleidoscope moving and changing. As you can see, magenta was a bit everywhere, and the finalists' accessories were displayed in a very visible way, making them a sort of focus of the whole booth. With more than 750 exhibitors showing their product line and a number of visitors that doesn't differ much from the other fairs we've talked about, Fabric Start is a unmissable stop for those who works in the field, as well.
Thanks to YKK, this huge amount of insiders had the chance to view the talent of our finalists at these major events held in three different cities in Europe. We're sure that some of them thought "wow, never believed a fastening could be used in this way!"
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YKK's support efforts are not over. At present they also working on the 2008 edition of their planner. For 2007 they had sent to clients and partners a very practical (here in the office lots of us use it!) yearly planner which included a description of ITS, the accessories project, and lots of photos of the collections of the accessories finalists with the concept of their work included. The planner will also be developed for next year, and we've just seen the layout...can't wait to receive it!
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