Pool Sales Are a Splash
Pooltradeshow sales tripled for fashion house SkinGraft compared with its business at the August 2008 Pool show. The strong sales were a confirmation that a hard business season might be coming to an end, said Jonny Cota, a designer for the Los Angeles–based brand.
“I wanted a show where designers would feel empowered and the economy would bounce back,” Cota said. If he got what he wished for, Cota and other Pool vendors made some compromises to build the foundations for a good show.
SkinGraft cut the wholesale prices of its collection 10 percent to 15 percent to make their wares more attractive to hard-pressed retailers. Another vendor, Tokidoki, cut the wholesale prices for its collection 10 percent to 20 percent, said the brand’s chief executive, Ivan Arnold.
The Pool show veteran also braced for a tough economy by cutting down his brand’s booth space by 25 percent for this show. Instead of taking the typical eight booth spaces, he took out six spaces. Cutting back seems to have paid off. “We did a lot more business than we thought we were going to do,” Arnold said. His brand also is opening a Tokidoki boutique in Los Angeles’ Melrose Heights retail district in mid-November.
Specialty retailers Metropark, Lisa Kline and Ron Herman shopped Pool, and buyers from Macy’s also reportedly shopped the show. Many overseas retailers from Japan, Germany and Brazil browsed through the wares of this trade show, which is devoted to emerging designers.
Pool management noted that 250 vendors exhibited at the show, which was basically even with the number of vendors that exhibited at the 2009 February show.—Andrew Asch
