California Apparel News

There will be 350 exhibitors at the April 23–25 run of the Los Angeles International Textile Show at the California Mart—on par with the April 2000 show—and organizers expect strong attendance at the show despite overall unease about the flagging economy.

“The economy is on everyone’s mind,” said Len Horowitz, executive director of the Textile Association of Los Angeles, one of the sponsors of the textile show. Horowitz said rising energy costs—both for electricity and natural gas—and rising labor costs are also key issues of concern.

“Having that as a cloud has put a damper on our business environment,” he said.

“Still, people need to buy clothes; it’s a necessity. Southern California will always be here; it’s a quick-turn market. It’s getting to be a moderate to better marketplace. We’re getting more contemporary manufacturers.”

Plus, he noted, Los Angeles’ position as a fashion leader will ensure a market for textiles.

“The innovations keep Los Angeles in the forefront of fashion,” he said.

Horowitz said he anticipates seeing more contemporary designers and piece goods buyers at next week’s show, in addition to several larger manufacturers and accessories manufacturers. Horowitz said he doesn’t expect many large retailers to turn out, but “Hot Topic, Wet Seal [and other] local chain store people will be around and a lot of catalog people will be turning up [as well].”

Local Strengths, New Strategies

In recent years, the textile firms that have been successful are those that offer novelty goods and those that can deliver goods quickly—what Horowitz calls the “mainstay marketplace.”

“There are suppliers that make a quick turn and offer production goods quickly,” said Horowitz, who noted that even as textile dyers have suffered under crippling natural gas rate hikes, “you’ve got printers printing fabric in three shifts, so there are still a lot of orders being taken.”

Some textile firms are considering ways to alter their business strategies to be both novel and quick-to-market without taking on the added risk of building up an inventory that may or may not sell.

Los Angeles-based importer Emser Apparel Fabrics is shifting focus from the novelty business to more basics—but with a twist, according to Shawn Ghodsian, sales director for Emser Apparel Fabrics, a division of Emser International.

The company plans to begin importing basic fabrics such as twill and poplin and convert the fabrics domestically “rather than doing all the processing overseas and stocking it over here as the finished product,” as the company has done in the past, Ghodsian said.

Emser will focus on five key fabrications: stretch denim, stretch twill, stretch bengaline, solid poplin and stretch poplin. This is a departure from the company’s previous strategy, which included carrying a large inventory of imported novelties available for immediate deliveries. But Ghodsian said the company is not technically out of the novelty business.

“The way to become novel is by printing on it,” he said, adding that deliveries for converted goods will range from 10 days to three weeks, depending on scheduling.

“Right now the economy is so sensitive that you can’t be everything to everybody,” Ghodsian said. “We decided what we are strong in is the basics, but taking the basics and twisting it around and making them into novelty.”

The new strategy means the company will have greater control over production and more buying power for the greige goods it is buying, allowing the company to either take a higher margin on some fabrics or offer them at lower prices.

Emser will be using the textile show to liquidate its stock of novelty fabrics at “promotional” prices of$1.50 to $2 per yard, Ghodsian said.

“We are primarily using the fabric show for getting rid of that stuff we have in our warehouse—novelty wovens, knits, pile fabrics, a lot of stretch, all the novelty stuff that we did in the past,” he said.

The company will then use the sales from excess stock to begin to shift focus to converting basic goods.

Ghodsian calls the company’s new focus “a matter of being safer and being more economical where you can survive in this economy.”

The coming year looks cautious but not devastating—particularly with the new strategy in place, Ghodsian said.

“These days it’s all about survival,” he said. “And what you need to do to survive is change the way you do business. If you don’t, you’re going to go out of business.”

Safety in Novelties

Most exhibitors said they anticipate novelty will help offset any economy-related nervousness.

French textile firm Billon Freres is not “getting as much of the jitters” as some textile firms that sell to the moderate-priced market, according to Gera Gallico, the New York-based sales manager for line, adding that she does not foresee the economy posing a threat to her business because she carried primarily novelty knits.

“Usually anytime people start getting nervous about the economy they rely on the excitement because it takes them out of the price comparison,” she said.

Similarly, Freddy Enbom, with Montreal-based S. Zinman Textiles, said he expects the designers and piece goods buyers at the textile show to be looking for new and different textiles.

“I know that the economy is suffering and we are all very nervous about the situation, but the only way that we are going to make it is by creating something new and different and we should be fine,” he said. “The glass is not always half empty, it’s also half full.”

But even textile companies that carry higher-priced, novelty goods said they have seen business shift to more conservative buying.

“I think everybody is a little cautious now,” said Michael Shapiro, president of Beverly Hills, Calif.-based D&N Textiles.

The “breadth of business” has dwindled in recent months, Shapiro said, although he added that it hasn’t affected his bottom line.

“I’m a little insulated [from a slowing economy] but the truth is, if I had 100 orders on hand at one time, maybe now I have 85,” he said, “My business is good but it’s primarily from bigger people giving me bigger orders rather than from more people giving me more orders.”