California Apparel News

After years of eyeing the West Coast market, the organizers of the Material World textile, technology and sourcing trade show are planning to set up a three-day Los Angeles show in 2009, according to sources.

The move comes shortly after the show’s organizers, Urban Expositions, headquartered outside of Atlanta, said it was ending its 4-year-old Material World New York trade show held in the fall. Many preferred to attend Material World’s more popular 8-year-old Miami Beach show, which takes place every April in Florida.

Tim von Gal, president of Material World and executive vice president of Urban Expositions, would not confirm or deny his company is opening a show in Los Angeles. But he did note that the trade-show organizer was attracted to the West Coast and the area’s business potential. “We have always been enamored with California and its access to the international fashion-production community,” he said. “There is such a strong and thriving industry in California that it makes it an extremely intriguing region.”

However, industry sources noted that Urban Expositions was about to sign a deal with the Los Angeles Convention Center to hold a textile trade show for Sept. 30–Oct. 2, 2009.

Initially the show would take place once a year, but it could possibly expand to a twicea- year format as long as it didn’t take away business from the Miami Beach show, most recently held April 8–10.

For that show, there were 400 exhibitors representing fabric and technology companies as well as a long list of seminars and events. Von Gal said it was Urban Expositions’ most successful show since the event first opened in September 2000.

Every three years, Material World in Miami shares space with SPESA Expo, a separate show that focuses on sewing equipment and technology. The last Material World/SPESA Expo was in 2007.

However, the organizers of SPESA, which stands for Sewn Products Equipment & Suppliers of the Americas, said they would not be exhibiting with Material World in 2010. Instead, they will set up their show at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta from May 18 to May 20, 2010, in conjunction with Techtextil North America, an exhibition for high-performance technical textiles and nonwovens, and ATME-I/MEGATEX (American Textile Machinery Exhibition-International), a show for companies that produce manufacturing equipment and provide services.

Dueling textile shows

A new textile show at the Los Angeles Convention Center could prove to be new competition for the 15-year-old Los Angeles International Textile Show, which occurs twice a year at the California Market Center in downtown Los Angeles. The most recent show was April 14–16, with the next one scheduled for Oct. 27–29.

The three-day exhibition features fabric and trim suppliers from the United States, Europe and Asia. In past years, the show has featured an Italian pavilion sponsored by the Italian Trade Commission, and it currently features a French pavilion organized by Lyon, France–based Espace Textile. In recent seasons, the Korean Textile Trade Association has been setting up its own booths inside the market center’s Fashion Theater.

The show is frequented by designers looking for new fabrics and ideas to integrate into their still-unformed collections. Small- and medium-sized manufacturers are able to see a wide selection of goods in a short amount of time, and many stop by the free trend-forecasting seminars presented by local and international trend-forecasting services.

Those familiar with Material World’s desire to organize a Los Angeles event don’t believe the new show would be detrimental to the L.A. International Textile Show. “It is more of an international product-development show than it is just a textile show,” said Ilse Metchek, who helped start the L.A. International Textile Show when she worked at the California Market Center. She is now executive director of the California Fashion Association, the nonprofit trade association for the apparel and textile industry.

She noted that the proposed Material World show in Los Angeles is envisioned to have not only textiles for the fashion industry but for the home furnishings industry, too. “As I understand the concept, it doesn’t conflict but hinges on what is there. It is not just textiles. There is a whole category of technology, software, hardware and equipment. We haven’t had an equipment show here for eight years.”

The last apparel technology show in Los Angeles was held in 2001, when VNU Expositions hosted the Sewn Products Expo Los Angeles (SPELA) at the Los Angeles Convention Center.