California Apparel News

HONG KONG—Inside the upper regions of Hong Kong Fashion Week, the trade-show floor turned into a scene right out of Hollywood.

Photographers wearing backwards baseball caps clicked rapid-fire photos of petite, sexy models who pursed their lips and pouted for the cameras in tightly cinched bustiers and corsets.

In the background, Roy and Bobbie Schlobohm stood in front of their bright, red-walled booth, seeping up the free publicity for their lingerie label, Shirley of Hollywood, based in Vernon, Calif.

“You couldn’t pay for this kind of advertising,” Roy Schloshy;bohm said as he displayed a wide grin and observed all the fanfare. The Shirley of Hollywood booth—crammed with gingham corsets, lacy teddies and black garter belts—emphasized the age-old adage that real estate is all about three things: location, location, location.

Inside the Hong Kong Exhibition and Convention Centre, the fancily decorated lingerie booth, staffed with a bevy of beautiful Asian models, was situated right outside the entrance to the fashion-show theater, where 14 fashion shows took place in the span of four days. Fashion photographers filming the shows couldn’t help but run right into the Shirley of Hollywood booths. Even show attendees were taken with the shapely models, who begged to have their photos taken with them.

This was the first time that Roy Schlobohm, president of the label bought by his father, Herman, nearly 40 years ago, exhibited at Hong Kong Fashion Week, a four-day trade show held every January and July. The Fall/Winter ’09 version took place Jan. 12–15.

The lingerie company chose to exhibit inside the World Boutique, a smaller show within Hong Kong Fashion Week that concentrates on designer and branded labels. Shirley of Hollywood received about 10 orders and made many new regional contacts. “We never had contacts with India before,” Roy Schlobohm said, noting he had also seen buyers from Singapore, Malaysia and Russia.

One female buyer from Saudi Arabia, whose head was wrapped in a thick brown shawl, examined a white teddy with dangling garters. When asked whether she was shopping for the Saudi Arabian market, she looked amazed. “What, do you think we in Saudi Arabia are different from other people?” asked Amna Ismael, buying goods for Raheed, a wedding- and evening-gown store.Business down

Shirley of Hollywood was one of the lucky exhibitors. Inside the cavernous halls that make up the convention center, exhibitors were predicting that business this season would slump as much as 25 percent to 30 percent.

Buyer traffic at the show slipped nearly 10 percent to 21,350 while the number of exhibitors declined 6.5 percent to 1,393 booths. This is not a surprise in this chill economic climate, but with U.S. apparel quotas for China now gone, many were expecting more interest in the Chinese factories exhibiting at the show.

Nevertheless, there were some buyers from U.S. companies such as Forever 21 and National Stores Inc., both of Los Angeles.

“My first impression was that it was very slow and quiet,” said Murray Braha, the import buyer for National Stores, which has 215 stores in the Southwest catering to the buyer on a budget. “The other thing was that vendors were asking for crazy prices. They were very, very high—about 20 percent higher.”

Part of that price increase was attributed to rising labor costs in China and the increasing value of the Chinese yuan compared with the U.S. dollar.

It was also due to the fact that factories needed to keep their revenues up as orders declined.

Everywhere you turned, headlines plastered on the front pages of the Asian newspapers delivered bad economic news. “China’s Trade Shrinks, Raising Fears,” said one International Herald Tribune headline. An article in the South China Morning Post noted that mainland China’s power consumption had declined for three months in a row because of a stubborn industrial slowdown. Industry is responsible for gobbling up 75 percent of China’s power.

Vincent Fang, chairman of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council’s garment-advisory committee and chief executive of Toppy, a nearly 40-year-old Hong Kong apparel manufacturer and retailer, predicted that some 10,000 of the 40,000 clothing factories in the south of China would be closed by the end of January, which coincides with the end of Chinese New Year.

“This crisis brings us back to basics, and innovative ideas are more important than ever,” he noted.

He was already expecting his business to be off during the first six months of this year.

Several other Chinese manufacturers agreed. Jacky Shang, sales manager for the Shenglida Garment Co. in Zhejiang, said last season she received orders for 100,000 sweaters and this year she had received orders for only 50,000 sweaters. “You know the economy is very bad,” she said, adding that the company had cut its prices by 10 percent to 20 percent.

Meda Garments Co. Ltd., a Chinese company that makes men’s shirts, has been to the trade show five times. But this time was probably the worst. “It’s not very good,” said Aaron Wong, the company’s representative. “Before, it was good.”

Over at the Indian pavilion, only 54 manufacturers exhibited this season, down from 64 last year and only a shade of the nearly 100 that showed up several years ago. Many felt their business at this show would decline by 20 percent to 30 percent over previous years.

“I’ve gotten some new contacts, but it is a slow fair,” said Nikhil Thukral, owner and director of Maharana of India, which has six factories with 1,500 workers near New Delhi. “Everybody is on the back seat. Everybody is scared.” He foresees business being off 20 percent to 25 percent.

Goyal Fashions Ltd. of Jaipur, India, has been coming to the show for several years. In the past, the company has made a lot of clothing for U.S. retailer The Children’s Place.

But this time, Pankaj Rastogi, head of the apparel company’s design and development, decided to take a smaller booth. “There is definitely a downward trend,” he said.

He noticed that buying groups were no longer coming in teams but whittled down to one or two people. However, the quality of the buyers had improved. Those who were at the show were more serious about placing orders. “They are asking for more styles and less depth,” he observed. “Before, they maybe ordered 100,000 items of one style, and now it is 60,000 to 70,000 per style.”

He expected the show not to be a total washout. Some business will be generated, just not as much as in previous years. “In difficult times, you have to lower your expectations,” he said.