PARIS — The trade show scene here is getting back in gear.
This January saw Who’s Next stage a format almost akin to pre-pandemic editions, with around 700 labels showing at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center. While other events, including Man/Woman, chose to cancel or postpone given the rise in Omicron cases in early January, Tranoï held its show with 28 designers at the Palais de Tokyo, alongside the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode’s Sphere showroom, with which it shared a presentation space.
There was also a new event in town: View, a trade show/showroom hybrid bridging men’s and activewear, made its debut at the Ecole Duperré after putting off its launch for several seasons due to the pandemic.
While international buyers were still thin on the ground, show organizers said that many Asian and American buyers sent their buying agents, and at Tranoï, for example, livestreaming sessions had allowed retailers unable to travel to connect with brands.
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“Traffic is roughly stable compared with last September’s edition,” Frédéric Maus, general director of WSN Développement, the organizer of Who’s Next, told WWD. Some 82 percent of visitors were domestic, compared with around 60 percent pre-pandemic.
Who’s Next’s September and January editions at Porte de Versailles, which have an extensive women’s ready-to-wear proposition, traditionally have a more French visitor profile than accessories-driven Première Classe, which takes place during Paris Fashion Week in the center of the city and attracts 70 percent international traffic, Maus highlighted — they have therefore been penalized less in the current context.
“That’s why we’ve been able to be resilient in the current context,” said Maus. “I think that by September, we will be back to a standard show,” he believes.
Among other initiatives, WSN is continuing to ramp up its online presence, aiming to create a platform connecting brands and buyers all year around. “We are trying to invent an omnichannel model that didn’t exist in the business-to-business space,” said Maus, who built a marketplace for catalogue retailer La Redoute before joining WSN in 2018. “We have 400,000 buyers in our databases, and we already have traffic on our website, it’s a case of turning that into a business model.”
The trade-show organizer, which will move its offices to sustainable fashion accelerator La Caserne in the next few weeks, plans to offer support with areas like purchasing and logistics, as well as a system to fluidify payments, he said.
Tranoï, for its part, continued to focus on a scaled back offering with a hand-picked selection of designers, although managing director Boris Provost admitted that initially, there had been plans for a slightly bigger event. “At the beginning of December, there were supposed to be 40 designers,” he said, citing production delays as well as ongoing restrictions on international travel and the spike in COVID-19 cases as having hampered attendance for brands as well as buyers.
“We were right to go ahead with it though,” he said, adding that he senses pent-up frustration for brands and buyers who have been unable to attend, and that mobilization for Tranoï’s March 4 to 7 edition, when it plans to showcase a broader selection at its historic Bourse venue, is strong.
Who’s Next, which included the 150th edition of jewelry event Bijorhca, taken over by WSN last year, succeeded in picking up certain exhibitors from events that were canceled, Maus said — notably lifestyle brands that would normally exhibit at Maison & Objet and a few lingerie labels, dependent on the Salon International de la Lingerie, which normally takes place the same weekend but was pushed back to June at the last minute. Around a third of the brands present at Who’s Next were newcomers.
The offer included the Impact space for sustainable brands, which has doubled in size since it launched in September 2019. “It’s a real response to a market need,” said Maus, who said that brands exhibiting in the space had evolved significantly over the past couple of years, honing their positioning. “The Impact area has been more interesting, it’s got a lot of attention,” said Gitte Henriksen, sales and design manager at Cofur Denmark, which employs women in India to create its rtw pieces made from repurposed saris. Overall, sustainability was a key differentiator for many of the younger brands present at all of the Paris shows, not just within the Impact area.
There was also the 360° Ride section for activewear labels, which Maus plans to grow further with coming editions, and a dedicated area for young designers funded through a partnership between WSN and crowdfunding platform Ulule launched last year.
These included brands like Nuances de Flow, created by Florida Nor, which offers handwoven designs colored with natural dyes in unusual shapes, and Eunoia Paris, with velvet rtw pieces and patchwork accessories made with fabric scraps from her clothing.
There were also service providers like The Second Life, created last year by Vicomte A founder and former chief executive officer Arthur de Soultrait to offer independent stores and shopping malls a role in the growing resale market by offering gift cards to consumers who bring back their used garments, driving loyalty and traffic. The system, which the start-up claims is unique in Europe, already references 1,800 labels.
At Bijorhca, exhibitors were happy with the new organization, hoping for synergies and a new dynamism. “It’s quiet, but I’m thrilled that it’s been taken over by Who’s Next, Bijorhca had been losing steam,” said long-term exhibitor Elsa Robichez, designer and founder at costume jewelry brand Les Yeux d’Elsa, which generated buzz at the show by highlighting its recycling service and a custom package allowing retailers to create charm bracelets in store.
At View, around 35 brands, most of them French, were exhibiting. The show was created in response to demand from brands with a mid-market positioning that felt they did not fit with the current trade show experience, show founder Hervé Huchet, a former Eurovet executive and currently international director of the French Menswear Federation, explained. “Apart from Man, in Paris, there was nothing similar for men’s wear,” Huchet said. “The brands have expressed the desire for a platform like this, and they’re really happy we’ve done it.”
Brands exhibiting included Aigle, best known for its gumboots, which is undergoing a revamp having appointed design trio Etudes as creative directors, with more of a fashion positioning. There was also workwear label Caterpillar, which is repositioning in Europe, and Avnier, the streetwear brand created by French rapper Orelsan.
Designers to Watch From the Paris Trade Shows
DenzilPatrick
U.K.-based Daniel Gayle, who cut his teeth with Jonathan Saunders, was presenting his third collection under the DenzilPatrick label, named after his Jamaican and Irish grandfathers. Inspired by travel — his Jamaican ancestor arrived in the U.K. in the 1950s as part of the Windrush generation, while his second grandfather was in the Navy — he instilled the collection with a combination of nautical references and a contemporary take on dandyism. Sustainably sourced fabrics like recycled leather and yarns are key elements of his ethos.
Category: Men’s wear
Showing at: Tranoï
Pricing: 45 pounds to 358 pounds, or $60 to $481 (wholesale)
MWorks
MWorks is the new name for French contemporary label Mansour Martin, which previously exhibited at Sphere. The new moniker aims to be more representative of the label’s collaborative approach to design. “It was always about being a creative hub, rather than an eponymous label,” said artistic director Martin Liesnard. The brand’s intent is to highlight new, sustainable production techniques and help them gain traction. This season, it worked with recycled Lycra, a Dutch printer using a technique that allows significant environmental gains and a startup in Roubaix, northern France that has developed a technique for seamless knitwear.
Category: Men’s wear
Showing at: Tranoï
Gunther
French designer Naomi Gunther was inspired to start her own men’s wear label just out of Parsons in New York, where her graduation collection was spotted by a stylist for rapper Offset. The rest is history, with high-profile celebrity collaborations having assured her young label a following. She staged her runway show in Paris the day before the men’s shows opened, with soccer player Djibril Cissé on the catwalk. Gunther couples high-end textiles and tailored fabrications with oversized silhouettes. Most of the collection is preorder only, and much is made with recycled or deadstock fabrics.
Category: Men’s wear
Showing at: Tranoï
Pricing: 95 euros to 2,000 euros (direct-to-consumer)
Louise Marcaud
Young French designer Louise Marcaud, an alum of the Condé school, uses scraps of fabrics and roll ends from luxury labels to create her wardrobe. Small fragments are assembled and coated in latex for certain pieces, while others are made with strips of cloth. These are combined with minimalist yet distinctive tailored pieces like boxy vests with rectangular shoulders. Marcaud will open a pop-up corner at Printemps’ Louvre outpost in February.
Category: Ready-to-wear
Showing at: Who’s Next
Prices: 70 euros average (wholesale)
Les Izmoor
Inès Bourgeois’ minimalist label, created last year, offers a single item per season intended to be worn in a multitude of ways and in a single size designed to fit all. Using high-end deadstock fabrics, her designs are pre-order only, and currently include a short dress, a blouse and a merino cardigan, with her fourth creation, a silk maxi-dress, showing as a prototype. While she intends to remain mainly direct-to-consumer, she was looking for retail partners to grow visibility.
Category: Ready-to-wear
Showing at: Who’s Next
Prices: 400 euros for the silk maxidress.
Calher Delaeter
This genderless French-Mexican label has garnered buzz with its velvet designs worn by French pop and nu-disco band L’Impératrice, which will be playing Coachella this year. Its fall collection includes jackets, skirts and crop tops crafted from cactus leather, designed for a diversity of body types.
Category: Ready-to-wear
Showing at: Who’s Next
Prices: 60 euros to 900 euros (direct-to-consumer)
Anoralp
A French outerwear brand originally launched in 1972, Anoralp is getting a new lease of life, relaunched by former marketing executive Fabienne Gachet, the daughter-in-law of its original founder. Its new collection combines technical materials with high-end fabrics like waterproofed Lora Piana wool, with cuts designed to appeal to city dwellers as well as mountaineers.
Category: Outerwear
Showing at: View
Prices: 590 euros to 890 euros for jackets (direct-to-consumer)