California Apparel News

Contemporary and designer representatives announced plans to move the Fall ’05 Los Angeles Market Week dates to March 20–24 in an effort to boost business and increase participation.

Designers & Agents co-founder Ed Mandelbaum and The Bank showroom co-owner Betsee Isenberg spearheaded the effort to shift the dates from the California Market Center’s announced April 8–12 market dates. Mandelbaum’s contemporary and designer show is held five times a year in Los Angeles at The New Mart and the Cooper Design Space.

A longtime tenant at The New Mart, Isenberg recently moved to the ground floor of the building, where she and partner Kay Sides carry lines including Catherine Malandrino, Diane Von Furstenberg, Joie, Robert Rodriguez and Vince. The space also houses the showroom for New York contemporary line Theory, which Isenberg also represents.

Mandelbaum and Isenberg have been longtime advocates of the earlier market dates.

“For a long time, Los Angeles has been moving towards being an international market, and the dates are always the last on the totem pole,” Mandelbaum said, noting that many buyers have little budget remaining for the season by the time the Los Angeles market rolls around. Many international lines are excluded from the market, as well, Mandelbaum noted, because many international companies have finished their Fall production before Los Angeles Market Week begins. “I’m an agent, and 50 to 60 percent of my companies couldn’t exhibit in Los Angeles; they go off sale at the end of March and the end of October,” he said.

Isenberg said the new dates will be a boon for her New York labels— including Diane Von Furstenberg, Catherine Malandrino, Theory and Robert Rodriguez— which launch their Fall collections in early February in New York. “By the time I [take the lines to] Los Angeles market two months after, it’s very, very difficult for them to accommodate my sales and my stores,” she said.

This is particularly true for companies that produce offshore and have to project their sales early in the season, she said.

“If you represent collections that are domestic and they can turn quickly, you’re about the only one who can really be in business during a market so late,” she said. “But if you’re a Diane or a Theory or a Vince or a Joie, you have to project on these collections in February. They’re not promising that they’re going to hold millions of dollars of goods for you to sell two months later. From a manufacturing standpoint, it’s way too late.”

Also, she noted, the new dates make Los Angeles more of an international fashion destination than a regional market. “And it’s only six weeks after New York as opposed to 10 weeks,” she said.

Earlier dates would help Lisa Elliot’s designers. The co-owner of the EM Productions showroom in the Cooper Design Space represents several designer and contemporary lines, including Heike Jarick, Alicia Lawhon, Grey Ant, Madley, Desanka, Brian Lichtenberg, Oligo Tissew for Oliver Twist and Rami Kashou. “By having the [Los Angeles] dates closer to New York, it makes a lot more sense,” she said, adding that many important retailers, including Saks Fifth Avenue and Henri Bendel, have finalized their orders by Los Angeles Market Week.

“By changing the dates and bringing them closer to New York market, the retailers haven’t finished confirming their orders yet,” she said. “So it’s still fresh in their mind, and they’re going to be able to review all their lines.”

Conflicts and convergence

The earlier market dates work well with Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week at Smashbox Studios, which also moved up the dates for its Fall ’05 runway shows to March 16–20. ENK International’s Brighte Companies is reportedly planning to move up its dates, as well.

The New Mart Manager Ethan Eller said his tenants had been asking for earlier market dates for some time.

“For years, the bulk of my tenants and Ed Mandelbaum of Designers & Agents, who’s also one of my tenants, have always wanted to move up the dates, particularly the April and November markets,” he said. “We’re really happy that our tenants stood their ground.”

The new dates will conflict with the StyleMax show in Chicago, scheduled for March 19–22. Mandelbaum said they paid close attention to the dates of the Dallas Market, set for March 31–April 3, because several Los Angeles resources also show in Dallas.

It remains to be seen whether the CMC will change its Fall ’05 market dates. CMC executives are currently evaluating its April 8–12 market week dates.

The building has tentatively scheduled the Los Angeles International Textile Show to run March 21–23, although a CMC spokesperson said those dates are subject to review. The CMC is currently in the process of being sold to Los Angeles real estate firm Jamison Properties, and escrow is expected to close early next year.

“The last thing we want to do is split the market,” Mandelbaum said, adding that for now, the new March dates are the only ones that have changed.

“The main place where there is an issue of dates is in Spring and Fall,” he said. “We’re planning to take it market by market.”

Isenberg said she is confident the new dates will resonate with retailers.

“If we get 50 people signed up for it, we would have our own market,” she said. “There’s strength in numbers, but when the best showrooms say, ’This is when I’m launching,’ the stores will come.”