California Apparel News

The lobby and food court were crowded. The elevators were slow and continuously packed. And parking was fiercely competitive.

However, all this spelled good news for the Los Angeles International Textile Show held April 29–May 1 at the California Market Center (which houses the California Mart).

Attendance was up over last year, according to Cal Mart officials (although the Cal Mart does not release exact figures).

We are thrilled with the attendance at the show this season,” said Cal Mart executive marketing director Trish Moreno. “We were visited by key designers in the industry, as well as many corporate executives.”

Among the designers and labels browsing the halls: Guess, Arden B., Bebe, Laundry By Shelli Segal, Karen Kane, Henry Duarte, City Girl, Casadei, Juicy Couture, Rusty, Teddi, Karushka, Drapers & Damon, Elisabetta Rogiani, Estevan Ramos, Trina Turk, Kristopher and Amy Enuke, MartinMartin’s Eric and Diane Martin, Petro Zillia’s Nony Tochterman, Mona & Co.’s Mona Thalheimer, Fever Jeans’ John Cherpas and Kellie Delkeskamp, Private designer Freddi Rojas and Bob Mackie.

Susan Lavinson, director of fabrics for GUESS? Inc., said she always visits the show to “revisit the vendors we do business with, touch base, pick up new things.”

Lavinson, who noted that she also attends fabric shows in New York, Europe and Asia, said she typically takes a day to shop the Los Angeles show. But, this time, she was back for a second day.

“I came with my design director on Monday [April 29] and found so many cool things that Maurice [Marciano, owner of Guess] sent us back today,” she said.

Several designers and fabric buyers said they took several days to shop the show, which featured more than 360 domestic and international resources exhibiting on the center’s 13th floor and in the Exhibition Hall, the Fashion Theater and permanent showrooms throughout the complex.

Freddi Rojas, designer for Los Angeles-based contemporary and young men’s label Private, said he was planning to shop the show all three days because “you’ll never know what you’ll miss.”

Among the specialty fabrics at the show were Golden Thread Silks, based in Seal Rock, Ore., and Kofu, based in Costa Mesa, Calif. The two companies, exhibiting nearly side-by-side in the Exhibition Hall, are family businesses featuring unusual items imported from the Far East.

Golden Thread imports hand-loomed silk fabrics from Cambodia and Vietnam. The 4-year-old company, run by mother-daughter team Deborah Didier and Courtney Norris, has been exhibiting at the textile show since 1999. The 35-inch goods and small quantities (a maximum order is 1,500 yards) attract a clientele of couturiers, boutique loungewear companies and home accessories companies, according to Didier.

The two said they liked the “market feel” of the Exhibition Hall, where people come looking for new items.

Mother-daughter team Elisa Renae and Setsuko Krickl were new to the show with Kofu, a line of cotton prints made by Olympus Manufacturing out of Nagoya, Japan.

Renae said her great grandfather started the import company 91 years ago, but textiles was a relatively new venture for the company launched about seven years ago.

The company took the line to New York for the International Fashion Fabric Exhibition last month, but Renae said that the cotton fabrics seemed to be resonating better with the fabric buyers at the Los Angeles show. Renae and Krickl said the show brought them into contact with designers of handbags and sportswear, as well as one maker of high-end baby clothes.

This year, the textile show was wedged in between Los Angeles Fashion Week and ENK’s Intermezzo show in New York—which may have kept the textile shopping to a minimum. Nony Tochterman, co-designer for Los Angeles-based Petro Zillia, said she typically spends three days at the show, but because she was preparing to go to New York for Intermezzo, she only gave herself two days.

Tochterman said she uses the show to help form her direction for the coming season.

“I swatch things that excite me,” she said.

European Draw

Many of the contemporary designers cited the European resources at the textile show, including Texitalia, comprised of 12 Italian lines in the Fashion Theater, and a block of 11 French fabric mills on the 13th floor.

“Jenni [Kester-Atbert, coordinator of the textile show] did a great job of attracting new international resources that widened the scope of the show,” the Cal Mart’s Moreno said.

Texitalia’s contingent this time was smaller than its group last October, when 22 lines showed, but there were no complaints from the exhibitors who did show.

“The first two days were quite busy,” said Richard Nissen, U.S. representative for Filtex, a New York-based company representing Aqua Fabrics out of Verona, Italy. Nissen said he’d made contact with several large labels, including Guess, Laundry and ABS. He added that he was getting a good reaction to Aqua Fabrics’ garment-washed Jacquards and cotton satins, which he showed sewn into jean-style jackets.

But the biggest crowd seemed to flock to the Arteca Group booth. The company, also based in Verona, carries the Italian Trend line designed by Joe Taranto. Local rep Claudio Collino explained that Taranto, who has designed fabrics used in the Versace and Prada lines, reworks fabrics such as leather and denim into unusual and unique fabrics. One new offering was a patched fabric that combined several different styles of eyelet.

“It’s really expensive but it’s also really unique,” said Collino.

The French exhibitors on the 13th floor also drew crowds of designers looking for high-end lace, silks and unusual prints.

The mood was good among the French exhibitors, according to Agnes Elisabelar, export manager for Espace Textile, the group that organized the exhibitors. All the mills hailed from the Lyon region of France.

“Most of the mills here already sell in New York,” said Elisabelar. “For them, California is brand new. They realize it’s a definitely different market.”

Elisabelar said she hoped all the European mills could be grouped together in the future, adding that she had already spoken with some of the representatives in Texitalia. (A spokesperson from the Italian Trade Commission, the organizer of Texitalia, could not be reached for comment.)

Trend Spotting

Designers and buyers looking for trend information had to look no further than the lobby of the Cal Mart, where organizers set up fabric and apparel trend boards—complete with compact disc players featuring appropriate soundtracks.

Show attendees could also choose from several trend seminars, including Color by Design Options’ “Spring 2003, the Left Coast Approach,” Bill Glazer’s discussion of Spring/Summer 2002 trends from Europe, Promostyl’s “Spring/Summer 2003 Influences, Color, Fabric and Shape Trends,” a presentation by ITDB’s Cinzia Black of an Autumn/Winter 03/04 preview and Peclars’ “Paris’ Spring/Summer 03 Color and Fabric Trends” presentation.