If you are involved in Fashion, then you will be happy to hear about the next edition of Fashion Industry Tradefair, to be held in Saint Petersburg on March 10-13. Is the largest show of its kind in Russia and this year is expecting to hold over 300 exhibitors from Russia, CIS countries, Baltic States, Europe and Asia. To get more details about the novelties and reasons to attend Fashion Industry, we have been talking with the organisers.
Fashion Industry is one of the leading b2b platforms for fashion in Russia but, what is supposing the event in the international calendar of the industry?
The trade fair is the best way to break into the Russian market and establish new business contacts with local buyers and retailers, to conclude long time treaties, to make orders for up-coming season collections, to exchange with a professional experience in fashion industry and professional business event organization.
Each season the Tradefair is visited by over 5000 fashion specialists and buyers from St Petersburg and area. Therefore the Tradefair plays a great role in the international calendar for those foreign exhibitors who would like to experience the growing Russian market and increase sales in St Petersburg area. The aim of the trade fair is to create best conditions for B2B personal meetings between clothes and textiles manufactures and local distributors, importers and retailers.
You also celebrate Generation NEXT Competition specially designed to present the creations of young designers. What reception has the competition had? Are there many participants?
The contest of young designers "Generation NEXT" goes 2009 as a platform for integration of students and graduates of specialized high education schools in the reality of fashion market. The competition is endorsed by the Governor of St. Petersburg G. S. Poltavchenko. The peculiarity of the contest is that we unite projects of textile, costume and graphics designers. This gives them the opportunity to see future colleagues’ works and establish professional contacts.
The competition is held twice a year: in March we present the work of designers with different training level and younger 35 years old. In October we display the projects of current year graduates, i.e. all the designers are at the same educational level but have by this moment different professional level, experience and potential. This is very interesting because during the contest we can see future industry leaders.
The geography of competition and the number of participants is constantly growing. At the moment it is participated by designers from Vladivostok, Yekaterinburg, Omsk, Ivanovo, Murmansk, Moscow and other cities of Russia and also from Belarus and Latvia. Our exhibit space contained up to 80 participants during the spring session and 45 best graduation projects.
The high level of competition is marked by awarding of our winner, the costume designer Lydia Demidova, with the "Golden spindle" (the national award in the fashion industry) in the "Debut" nomination. She was selected from nine winners of different Russian young designers’ competitions.
Besides the competition, what other novelties will we find in this year's edition?
The most important accompanying business event of the Tradefair is the Fashion Congress (Economic Forum of Fashion Industry) which allows establishing a productive dialogue between producers and buyers. Discussion of all aspects of the industry is conducted in several areas.
Scientific and practical conferences help to establish direct contacts with the local authorities and solve urgent problems. Proposals made during the conference are later submitted for discussion at administrative structures. Training seminars, workshops, training courses aimed to improve the professional level of all members of the fashion-industry: producers, buyers, designers and others.
Besides the Fashion Industry will host a Job Fair which includes contacts with the HR-specialists of the leading fashion companies, individual consulting on job search, an extensive database of resumes, recommendations for staff recruitment.
Can you give some tips for those foreign exhibitors participating in Fashion Industry for the first time? (venue rules, customs, protocol...)
To attract more attention to one’s participation we recommend first to choose a good stand’s location and to decorate one’s stand in a bright notable way. We are interested in new coming companies’ successful participation and are ready to offer them additional services for extra promotion.
For example, email exhibitors’ info towards our trade database, include info regarding one’s participation into our press-release, organize a presentation at our business centre during the trade show, place exhibitors’ leaflets and catalogues into our visitors’ bags at the registration desk, and so on.
We also recommend new all coming companies to take part in Fashion Catwalks which give a good opportunity to present new collections and get an important feedback from fashion specialists.
Who can attend the Show?
Our target visitors are fashion shop owners and retailers, importers and distributors of fashion garments. The major part of them operates in medium and high medium price segment. We also welcome city and governmental authorities, fashion mass media and designers at the Tradefair.
The entrance for professional visitors and buyers is free-of-charge during all days of the Tradefair. Taking into account a current economic situation we also let public visitors in on the last day of the Tradefair. We guess it is a good chance for producers to test direct sales and to get an additional profit from participation.
As a visitor, give us at least three reasons to attend Fashion Industry 2016
- First of all, it is the best way to make orders for new collections at manufactures to find new clients and establish contact with new partners.
- Secondly, the Tradefair gives an opportunity to see fashion trends for the upcoming season and to correct assortment accordingly.
- And surely the Tradefair is a business platform where fashion specialists can exchange with professional experience and evaluate how to get more profit during crisis times.
Finally, can you give us some participation results from the last edition?
The best Tradefair’s result for us is that 70% of our exhibitors are our continual partners for many years. We try to do all our best to promote their participation among buyers and professionals. So we guess our exhibitors’ references could tell about their results better than we:
- Vadim Alikhanov (director of "OVAL" Company, Minsk, Byelorussia) "Compared with recent years the situation has much improved. There are new wholesalers from Saint-Petersburg and Leningrad region. The number of useful contacts has increased a lot. And that is the most important thing at the exhibition".
- Dmitry Larionov (managing director of «CheCheLYKA» company, Belgorod, Russia) "We have come at this exhibition for the first time. I believe that we continue to come to St. Petersburg because we have found new customers, including those who have a store chain. We did a lot of contracts on different sized rows and large sums".
- Michael Skidanenko (CEO TM "JKT", St. Petersburg, Russia) "The main idea of the exhibition, in my opinion, should not be changed. Let it remains wholesale and retail at the same time. But it is necessary to pay more attention to the retail section. Wholesalers immediately see the attitude of the retail customers to one’s production and make cooperation decisions much faster. In this case, there will be more such companies as our one".
Thank you for your interest in our event and we hope to welcome new visitors and exhibitors at Fashion Industry Tradefair in St Petersburg, Russia, held on 10-13 March 2016.