NEW YORK — Joining the trade show circuit this week in Manhattan was Curve.
More than 1,300 buyers from around the globe came out to the intimate apparel and innerwear show — which ran Sunday through Tuesday at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center — to see the latest in lingerie, attend panel discussions, network and see a burlesque performance by New York-based actress and showgirl Pearls Daily.
“We are almost fully back to business,” Raphael Camp, chief executive officer of Eurovet Americas, the company that produces the event, told WWD.
“Our Curve New York show was an incredible success,” said Camp, regarding the show’s second run during the pandemic. (The first, featuring a smaller line-up of brands and buyers, was held last September at Manhattan’s Spring Studios.)
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“We have learned the importance, especially in the intimates business, of how much our industry is about relationships and nurturing connections,” Camp said. “Being able to network and exchange information, along with the ability to see product on models is invaluable.”
January’s Curve Paris, perhaps the largest take for the show, was canceled, largely due to the Omicron variant. The show has been rescheduled for June. While attendance at the recent New York show was still below pre-pandemic levels, Camp said he was pleased with the turnout nonetheless, which was about 70 percent of 2019’s attendance rates.
Buyers at the Big Apple convention center this week browsed new styles from approximately 125 intimate apparel brands from around the globe, about 10 percent of them first-time exhibitors, brands such as Cosabella, Chantelle, Panty Promise, Va Bien and Commando.
Many of the buyers, and particularly those from e-commerce sites, were in search of sexy offerings as well as at least a partial return of underwire bras.
“It looks like maybe women are more comfortable buying sexy online than in stores,” Camp said.
While there’s no data to confirm or deny this, Guido Campello, co-chief executive officer and creative director at Cosabella, said there are other factors at play, like a return to dating.
“All of that stuff is happening where you’re sick and tired of seeing yourself in the same stuff that you’ve seen yourself in for the last two years,” he said. “Everyday sexy is missing [from the market.] People are actually coming in [to the booth at Curve] and specifically asking for well-priced [pieces] that they can actually wear comfortably two or three times a week because they want to layer them.”
Meanwhile, Claudel Lingerie, a lingerie manufacturer and retailer based in Quebec, said there’s still a lot of demand for loungewear. “Even if people are going back to work,” explained Anny Claude Lapierre, a sales director at the brand. “They’re wearing it inside the home.”
Sleepwear logged the strongest growth of all intimate apparel categories during the last two years, according to Todd Mick, executive director of fashion apparel at market research firm NPD Group, who led a panel discussion on emerging trends on Monday. Although sleepwear may have slowed down in 2021, compared with 2020 and the initial lockdowns around the world.
Still, the entire intimate apparel industry, including sleepwear, added $4.8 billion worth of sales in the last two years.
“That is amazing growth for an industry that is generally considered a mature one,” Mick said. “And it really shows the breadth of growth opportunity that is available in the intimates business. We’re seeing it in the data and we’re just so bullish.
“Brands that are winning are really understanding her value and lifestyle,” he said. “She wants to feel sexy; she wants to feel authentic. She wants to feel comfortable. And sometimes she wants to feel all of those things all at the same time. She’s diverse; she’s far from monolithic. And she wants to shop her values.”
Also new at this edition of Curve New York was the Lingerie Briefs Salon, which featured new and emerging lingerie designers (many of whom could not afford to attend solo), such as Avery Rose, Birds of Paradise, Noelle Wolf, Pure Chemistry and Movelle, among others.
The Curve trade moves to Los Angeles next week for Curve Los Angeles, which will take place at the Cooper Design Space in downtown L.A. on March 6 and 7. The show will include swimwear for the first time, followed by the addition of activewear in either the summer or fall Curve shows.
“That’s the goal,” Camp said. “To convince activewear vendors to come. A lot of buyers want a one-stop shop destination where they can get lingerie, swim and activewear.”
The group is also planning a Curve Montreal in Canada this fall to coincide with Montreal Fashion Week.