Photo courtesy of Kingpins
TRADE SHOWS
Kingpins Cancels New York Edition, Launches New Online-Retail Offering
Originally scheduled to take place June 2–3 at Basketball City on Pier 36 in Manhattan, the New York edition of Kingpins, the trade event for denim enthusiasts, has been canceled. This follows the cancellations of its April 22–23 edition in Amsterdam and May 13–14 show in Hong Kong, the Andrew Olah–founded brand announced recently.
“Our biggest concern is the health of our community. We have canceled our Amsterdam and Hong Kong events and have now made the difficult decision to cancel our Kingpins New York event,” Olah said in an April 9 statement. “Thankfully, we are now in a position to continue to engage with our audience on a daily and weekly basis and are exploring new ways to gather our denim community online.”
To sate the appetite for professionals in the denim space to reconnect, Kingpins announced on March 24 that a new show format would take place as a virtual edition. Named Kingpins24, the event will allow the denim industry to share new ideas, plans for the future and solutions for the industry in anticipation of life after COVID-19. Kingpins24 takes place April 22–23.
In addition to this fresh trade-show concept, Kingpins announced in an April 10 email that it had launched a new Kingpins Shop, an online retail store that offers books, art, apparel and accessories, home goods, vintage pieces, lifestyle goods, and kits to embark on do-it-yourself projects at home. Olah explained that the love for indigo he shares with his peers inspired kingpinsshop.com.
“My first trip to Japan in 1980 was not only inspiring but set the tone for the rest of my life because there in Tokyo I saw all the opportunities available for denim fabric,” he explained. “I saw more indigo items in Tokyo in two days than I had seen in my entire life. All my life I had thought, ‘Why can’t everyone see everything there is to see in indigo in one place?’ And now we have it. We are about indigo and our love of it. The Japanese word for ‘indigo’ is ‘ai’ and the word for ‘love’ in Japanese, while different characters, is also ‘ai.’ ”
