California Apparel News

Strong traffic, an increased international presence and networking opportunities throughout the supply chain marked the Oct. 21–23 run of the Los Angeles International Textile Show, held on the 13th floor, in the Fashion Theater and in the Exhibition Hall of the California Market Center (CMC).

Exhibitors reported buyer traffic coming in waves and many familiar labels were in attendance, including Laundry by Shelli Segal, Juicy Couture, Private by Freddi Rojas, Cornell Collins, Alicia Lawhon, Estevan Ramos and City Girl by Nancy Bolen.

“We are extremely pleased with the recent textile show results,” said CMC vice president of marketing Lorelyn Eaves. “The first day alone we had attendees from 26 states and 11 countries. In attendance were Richard Tyler, A.B.S., Axis Clothing, Bebe, L.E.I., Guess, Nine West, Pacific Sunwear, XOXO, St. John Knits, Sportif USA and Jessica McClintock.”

Several local designers said this season they skipped other textile shows, opting to buy solely in Los Angeles.

Lori Batt, co-designer for Los Angelesbased contemporary coat line Edward An, said she typically attends Premiere Vision in Paris and the Los Angeles show. But this year Batt only attended the Los Angeles show.

Premiere Vision “has a lot of great wools and technical fabrics,” she said, adding that the selection at the Los Angeles show has improved over the years.

“Now I skip the New York fabric show and just shop Paris and this show,” she said.

International Presence

The show also saw an increase in its international exhibitors. The French Pavilion on the 13th floor has grown from nine exhibitors last October to 12 last April. This time, the pavilion had 15 exhibitors including Goutarel, a high-end cutting-edge line, and Sofileta, a line of technical fabrics.

Espace Textile, the Lyon, France-based organizers of the French Pavilion, said they want to increase the number of exhibitors to 20 by the next show, according to Agnegrave;s Elisabelar, international export manager for Espace. Elisabelar said she would like to see an international pavilion including French, Italian and Spanish exhibitors.

Many Italian mills are currently exhibiting in the CMC’s Fashion Theater as part of Texitalia. This year, the show featured 19 lines and was a draw for contemporary designers such as Eletra Casadei, who was looking for fabrics for her Casadei collection.

This was the first time showing at the Los Angeles Textile Show for Texitalia exhibitor Marco Ciucci, who was representing several Italian lines including Tessilgodi, Texapel and Lanificio Caverni e Gramigni.

This is the first time but we already know the market,” said Ciucci, adding, “Our goal is to have another office in the states as well as our office in New York.”

Brazilian knit mill Savyon joined the textile show for the first time in the Exhibition Hall.

“We have a lot of customers in Los Angeles and decided this is a good market for us,” said Renato Bitter, international sales rep for the company, which produces novelty knits for the swim and sportswear markets.

Sourcing Information

The Los Angeles Textile Show also serves as an informational hub for apparel and textile executives looking for information about new technologies, fibers and trends.

Victoria Pik, U.S. merchandise manager for Lenzing Fibers, makers of Lyocell and Modal, was meeting with both manufacturers and mills from her 13th floor booth. “We’re here for two reasons—for sourcing purposes and for development purposes for our direct customers which are the mills,” she said.

Cotton Inc.’s Eike Heymer, director of Fabric Development and Research Implementation, also set up shop in a seventhfloor showroom to meet with about 15 mills to talk about new cotton developments.

“In terms of machinery there’s not much new out there,” he said. “In order to be creative, it has to come from the yarns.”

This is the fifth year that Heymer has come to meet directly with mills and converters at the show. Cotton Inc. sets up a limited number of appointments with key accounts to show the latest developments in cotton and cotton blends.

“The buzz word out there is light, light, light,” said Heymer, noting that mills are looking for ultra-fine-weight fabrics including 36-gauge knits.

Software company Winfashion was also working both sides of the supply chain from its booth in the Exhibit Hall. David Dea, vice president of operations for the company, was on hand to demonstrate Winfashion’s software applications for building line sheets, costing garments or tracking production for designers and manufacturers. But he also met with a Hawaiian-based textile company looking for a way to organize and track its fabric inventory.

This was also the place to seek out color and fabric trend information with five forecasting presentations held during the week including seminars hosted by Color By Design Options, the International Color Authority and International Textiles magazine, Promostyl, Carlin International of Paris and Peclers Paris.

The trend seminars were part of the draw for Carla Tomson, designer and coowner of Carpinteria, Calif.-based label Solitude, according to her husband and Solitude co-founder Sean Tomson.

Sean Tomson said the two found several new resources at the show including a hemp and recycled plastic fabric from China and a Jacquard supplier from India.

“If you find one thing here it makes it worthwhile,” he said.