New L.A. Textile Show Plans to Expand With Global Vendors

Officials from the Dallas Market Center were in Los Angeles recently to flesh out the details of a twice-a-year textile show they are planning for the Los Angeles Convention Center next year.

Bill Winsor, the DMC’s president and chief executive, and Cindy Morris, the market center’s chief operating officer, said the 2009 shows will be held April 21–23 and Oct. 13–15. Future dates, spanning a 10-year period, have been tentatively blocked out at the Convention Center. The event, called GlobalTex, will be backed by the Textile Association of Los Angeles, which will be an exclusive endorser of the event, giving TALA members a discount to participate.

In the past, TALA has backed the twice-a-year Los Angeles International Textile Show, held in April and October at the California Market Center. The CMC will hold its next textile show Oct. 27–29, 2008.

The Dallas event is the second new textile show slated for Los Angeles. Urban Expositions, located outside of Atlanta, recently announced it would stage an annual textile show at the Los Angeles Convention Center every fall. Their first event, called Material World West, is planned for Sept. 30–Oct. 2, 2009, at the Convention Center in downtown Los Angeles, where a new Convention Center hotel is going up. The show is an official event of the American Apparel & Footwear Association, the influential apparel and textile trade group based in Arlington, Va.

Urban Expositions puts on the annual Material World show in Miami Beach, Fla., every spring. Their next show is scheduled for April 21–23, 2009. It will be held at the same time as GlobalTex in Los Angeles.

This is Urban Expositions’ first foray to the West Coast. The show would not only encompass the world of fashion and home-furnishings fabrics but also technology, color trend seminars and other industry seminars.

Tim von Gal, president of Material World, said his company spent five years studying whether a textile show would work in Los Angeles before announcing its plans. “We have enjoyed great success from what we have done in Miami Beach and look at the same success in Los Angeles,” he said. “Our show will have a definite strong emphasis on fabrics and textile products and services and technology that support fashion-style production. If they are touching on any of those areas, I would presume they would overlap.”

Ilse Metchek, executive director of the California Fashion Association, said she had no comment about the new show planned by Dallas organizers.

Winsor said the first show would have about 400 booths or more, bringing in a larger international group of vendors. He envisioned the show one day growing to 5,000 vendors.

To get out the word about the new show, Winsor and Morris have been traveling to Shanghai, Vietnam and Pakistan to talk to textile manufacturers who might be interested in participating. The DMC manages the ShanghaiMart in China.

Winsor said his group has been planning this show for some time. “Almost five years ago, we gave a proposal to TALA for a broad-based international show at the Los Angeles Convention Center that could have them in one environment,” said the DMC executive. “Two years ago, we presented another proposal to TALA, and we thought it was an excellent opportunity for an event that would have seminars, special events like Premiegrave;re Vision [the French textile show] and make it a global event.”

Winsor said he received a call nine months ago from Brian Thaler, the president of TALA and owner of executive search firm Scott-Thaler Associates, about a show that would be under one roof with room to expand.

“For the past two years, I have been president of TALA and I have had some major concerns for people who spend money on their booths [at the L.A. International Textile Show],” Thaler said. “I feel the Dallas Market Center will be able to do the proper marketing and the public relations to bring to Los Angeles all the manufacturers and all the top-name hitters to a show. I just feel they know how to bring in a customer base, and I don’t feel the show has been handled properly in the past.”

All the TALA board members, many of whom were at a May 29 press conference in downtown Los Angeles announcing the event, were strongly behind the new textile show. “I think it is going to become a worldwide show and will bring in many trade organizations from all over the world. We have the room to grow and think globally,” said Ann Davis, a TALA board member and a sales representative for American Fabrics International Inc. and Eclat Textiles.

April Booth, a sales representative for Eclat Textiles, was enthusiastic about the show, which will have the ability to grow in size and scope over the next decade. “It is going to ensure the life and viability of the garment industry here,” she said.

Booth, who has regularly participated in Material World in Miami Beach, said she will probably no longer attend the Florida event and stick to the Los Angeles textile show. “I’m going to be here in Los Angeles. I have no choice. I live here, work here, and my customers are here. I have some customers in Miami, but they will come here. This is what’s happening.”

One concern was whether the price of booths at the new textile show would increase because the Los Angeles Convention Center has a unionized labor force. Winsor said a standard booth would cost about $2,100 to $2,200, a few hundred dollars more than at the Los Angeles International Textile Show.

In addition to the time conflict with the Material World Show in Miami, the new textile show could conflict with the CMC’s Majors Market, which traditionally is held in early April and early October.