SWIM BUSINESS

Swim Collective Launching Beach Collective in August, Planning Swim Week in 2016

On the heels of its first standalone Active Collective trade show, Swim Collective will launch a new premium beachwear section during the upcoming Swim Collective—International Edition show Aug. 13–14 in Huntington Beach, Calif.

The new section is part of a larger effort to build a week-long swimwear and activewear trade-show series planned for 2016.

The upcoming Beach Collective and Swim Collective will be held at the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach Resort & Spa, where executive show director and founder Shannon Leggett also hosted the recent Active Collective trade show, which focuses on activewear and athleisure brands such as Beyond Yoga, Yogasmoga, Colosseum and Lorna Jane. Active Collective will return to the Hyatt in January for its next show.

“The main focus of the Beach Collective is to promote the awareness of premium beachwear brands,” Leggett said. “We want to bring special attention to global brands like Melissa Odabash, Loér Beachwear, OndadeMar, Água de Coco, Triya, Lenny Niemeyer, Tori Burch, Moeva, Encantador and Babajaan. We launched the Beach Collective to foster the unique identity of the premium beachwear brands and give them their own distinct and intimate space to develop.”

The brands showing at Beach Collective, which include returning exhibitors and newcomers to the show, are sold at a premium price point. The new section, which is inspired by international luxury beach resorts, will provide buyers with a “more intimate and relaxed environment,” Leggett said.

“It definitely won’t look like your traditional trade-show environment,” he added.

In coming seasons, Leggett said he plans to add more “creative exhibition spaces,” launch additional events and add retailer educational seminars.

“Next year, we plan to create an entire week to celebrate swim,” Leggett said. “It will start with Swim Collective on Monday and Tuesday followed by the Beach Collective on Tuesday and Wednesday [and] finish off the week with Active Collective on Thursday and Friday. This will allow buyers to review the entire Swim, Beach and Active markets across the week in Southern California.”

Plans call for Beach Collective to also become its own standalone trade show held at the Paséa Hotel & Spa, a new venue located near the Hyatt Regency in Huntington Beach. Leggett said he anticipates more than 100 exhibitors showing in the hotel’s top floor, which features penthouse suites and a rooftop deck and bar overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The show will host an evening reception on the rooftop deck.

For more information about Beach Collective, visit www.beachcollective.us. Information about Swim Collective can be found at www.swimcollective.com, and information about Active Collective can be found at www.activewearcollective.com.