California Apparel News

After producing four Agenda Wmns sub-shows at the popular Agenda trade show, Vanessa Chiu will helm her own event, which will be called Axis, it was announced on Sept. 4.

The first Axis show is scheduled to run Feb. 22–24 in New York. It will share space with Capsule Women’s trade show on Pier 94 in Manhattan. Axis will be a biannual show, and it is owned by Reed Exhibitions, which also owns Agenda. Chiu will work with a staff of three people to get the new show going. She will work out of Reed offices in Los Angeles and the East Coast.

She predicted that 200 branded collections will exhibit at Axis. It will be different from Agenda WMS, which showcases street fashion and activewear looks for females at Agenda, which has been considered a show dominated by men’s fashions and style, said Chiu, who will continue to direct Agenda Wmns.

Axis will exhibit “elevated” street fashions, and there also will be a cross-category focus on health and fitness, beauty, home products, and swim. “Axis was created to fill the void in the New York Women’s fashion lifestyle market with niche brands that currently do not show,” Chiu said in a prepared statement. “We’ve built a platform to showcase the new-new, [emerging brands] expose branded collections that were displaced in the current New York trade circuit and introduce new global collections into the U.S. marketplace.”

Axis also announced a group of advisers to counsel the show. They include Kristin Reiter, Nike’s global concept director; Adrianne Ho, founder of the blog Sweat The Style; Kasia Meador, a surfer and fashion creative consultant; Rachel Wang, Style.com’s fashion market director; and Deirdre Maloney, Capsule trade show’s co-founder.