California Apparel News

All six ballrooms were packed at the Women’s Wear in Nevada (WWIN) show, which took place Aug. 18–21 at the Rio All-Suites Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

The show, organized by Specialty Trade Shows Inc. in Coconut Grove, Fla., has been a strong venue for misses labels and accessories that cater to specialty stores, catalogs and online shopping sites.

Roland Timney, the event’s manager for the past 16 years, said the show was filled. “We are using every inch of space that the Rio has right now,” he said. “There were 850 booths, which is the same that we have at every single show. That represents about 180 to 200 companies.”

A good deal of the exhibitors were companies based in California, but there were labels from Connecticut, Florida, Texas, New York, Washington, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Canada.

Each ballroom was a sea of clothing with booths packed tightly into each space. Some rooms were extremely busy, with a hum in the air as buyers chatted and perused the latest collections, trying to decide whether to place paper right away or think about it. Other rooms seemed to be quieter and less congested.

Everyone had a different experience at the show, with some feeling that with WWIN starting on a Monday, the same day that MAGIC Market Week began, there were fewer buyers the first day, which traditionally has been the busiest day.

Often, WWIN starts a day before MAGIC Market Week, and buyers are freer to wander over to the hotel to check out the latest collections. Many exhibitors complained that buyer traffic was down this year compared with recent shows.

“It was pretty slow,” said Carmen Trujillo, head of sales for Weekendz Off, a casual womenswear line based in Commerce, Calif. “We have done this show many, many times. We do have our regular customers stop by, but we wanted to get new customers. We got some but not what we felt we could have,” Trujillo said. “I think a lot of customers are going direct to the Internet to buy. Everyone wants inexpensive items. Also, I think the Offprice show is taking away a lot of our customers.”

Robert Gruber, owner of A People United in Baltimore, has been attending the show for 15 years to sell his cotton clothing made in India and hats made in Nepal. “Usually the first day is a slam-dunk, but it has been slow,” he said.

Other exhibitors were constantly busy. Shannon Passero, the co-founder and designer at Canada-based Pure Handknit and Neon Buddha, has been doing the show for four years. She expanded to six booths this year to accommodate the company’s vast collection of boho and gypsy-like looks that are made in northern Thailand. “This is one of our strongest shows. We were non-stop on Monday,” she said, adding that 90 percent of her orders were for Spring 2015.

Nevertheless, buyers were cautious in their writing, she noted, and coming more prepared than in the past. “They want the next version of the most popular-selling item,” Passero said.

Over at the Tianello booth, company owner Steve Barraza said he was busy selling Immediates, which he could quickly deliver because everything is made in his factory, south of downtown Los Angeles. “We came home with a lot of orders in hand, and we have quite a bit out. All in all, it was a good show,” he said.

The majority of his orders was for delivery on 10/30 or as soon as stores could get items.

Barraza, who now manufactures more silk tops than his traditional Tencel tops, has been doing the show for years and sees more e-commerce sites shopping the floor than department stores. Specialty stores remain strong attendees.