TRADE SHOWS
Magic Mens Appeals to a Diversity of Styles
Along the fringes of the MAGIC Mens show, held Feb. 5–7 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, Dean De Costa of Cotton Heritage exhibited his brand’s blank T-shirts.
A booth for blank tees might not have seemed like a good fit for a trade show with a focus on everything from classic menswear collections to jeans, but De Costa and his colleagues thought their booth would appeal to fashion businesses that need T-shirt blanks for licensed apparel.
Located alongside the Project trade show, MAGIC Mens sought to serve a wide array of fashion markets with products ranging from tuxedo jackets, motorcycle boots and denim to Halloween costumes and socks with images of breakfast cereal icon Tony the Tiger.
Ahmed Akar, owner of the Odd Sox brand, exhibited at the show to sell to a wide range of stores. “It’s a diverse retail audience,” he said of the show’s attendees. “You have majors, specialty stores and independent boutiques.”
Cesar Lozano, chief executive officer of David Gonzales Art in Paramount, Calif., exhibited T-shirts, hoodies and boardshorts from his Spring 2019 looks, focused on the Chicano and low-rider art of David Gonzales. “The show is great for us. We picked up a lot of new stores,” Lozano said.
The trade show had a similar pace to many of the other trade shows in Las Vegas, said Jeff Radtke of Creative Apparel Concepts. “The first day was very good,” he said. “The second day was steady until the early afternoon. Then it died down.”
Hillel Lieberman of outerwear-focused company Trailcrest said that the often moderate pace of buyer traffic at the show had a benefit for vendors. “It’s a great place to have meetings,” Lieberman said. “It’s a very calm environment. There are no overpowering booths. “
Andrew Sumner of Titan Entertainment displayed licensed products including vinyl collectors’ toys and T-shirts for music and entertainment properties such as The Beatles and Doctor Who. He said he had more than 50 meetings at the show, although that was a decline over previous years. “It’s about quality meetings that I have in these three days rather than the quantity,” Sumner said.
