NEW YORK — Items and knit dressing are expected to heat up market week for contemporary and junior lines.
Vendors said they were looking forward to finishing up fall business and writing some holiday orders, with some noting that appointment books are fuller than usual.
“June market week is like the last exit on the highway before you hit the bridge — if you don’t buy it now, it’s too late,” said Ady Gluck-Frankel, president of the junior firm Necessary Objects.
In most lines, the palette continues to be dominated by the neutrals of the past few season, but vendors in both contemporary and junior lines are livening it up with splashes of color.
While late fall and holiday don’t generate the volume of business that the fall season does, manufacturers said they were expecting some healthy increases this season, from at least 6 percent to as much as 25 to 30 percent.
Ann Kasper, vice president of sales at Eileen Fisher, said she had an early indication of what to expect from the holiday market week from Fisher’s sales at last month’s International Fashion Boutique Show. Based on that, she said, business will definitely be up over last year’s season, and buyers will be looking for knit dressing and knit items such as Fisher’s rayon chenille sweaters.
“Buyers are continuing their interest in our washable velvets, and the chenille sweaters,” she said. “We’re also doing a merino wool knit group and we’ve added a group of fine-gauge rayon knits. People are buying the knit groups as a collection and the chenilles as items, but to work back with the knit dressing.
“We added colors such as teal and cranberry for holiday, but we’ve found that people love the more sophisticated colors such as raisin and chocolate.”
“Traditionally, holiday is not a huge market,” said Arlene Tynan, president of Finity. “The fourth quarter is always a downtrend in serious career purchases. We’ll see a moderate increase because we’re doing business with more doors than we were last year.
“Now, the consumer wants more item-oriented impulse buys. We’ve been getting a lot of requests for something colorful,” she noted. In response, the company is offering bright hues — gold, purple and lipstick red — in “iridescent chiffons, silk crepe and a kind of crushed, corded and beaded silk that we’ve made into that one fabulous jacket she can put on with any black bottom.”
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“We try to use seasonless fabrics like a viscose matte crepe that can go right into spring,” she said.
Tynan also noted she’s been getting requests from retailers for new skirt shapes, so she will be offering “a striped silk pouffy taffeta party skirt, an A-line, some bias-cut circle skirts in silk — all of these make great items.”
Kenar president Kenneth Zimmerman spoke along the same lines, noting that his company will be offering “the kind of items people have come to expect from us — beaded and embroidered vests, as well as a new group of silk velvets that we hit with an enzyme wash so it looks antique.”
Zimmerman said he expects healthy double-digit increases this week, as stores finish their fall buying as well as leaving paper for holiday goods. He’s also gotten some significant new accounts, he said, such as Bloomingdale’s.
In the young contemporary and junior market, buyers will mostly be finishing up late fall purchases, according to Barry Bates, vice president of sales for Esprit Apparel.
Bates said business in the San Francisco company’s New York showroom would be up over last year “because we are doing business with 15 or 20 percent more stores than we were last year.”
“Our holiday plan is to do a bare minimum of 20 percent over what we did last year,” he said. “We were 35 percent over plan in the fall, so I don’t think that’s an unreasonable goal. We also haven’t raised our prices, which I think is important.”
Knit tops are far and away the hottest category at Esprit, Bates said, so the emphasis will remain there through holiday. That includes cotton or cotton blend small ribbed tops or camisoles, cotton and Lycra spandex pointelle tops, as well as mohair bouclÄ sweaters, melange yarns and lambswool and angora sweaters.
The color palette will be dominated by darks such as black, navy and heathered gray during the first part of fall, but will include color accents such as ruby and jade green, he said. Later shipments will have some bright acid tones and pastel shades, he added.
Gluck-Frankel at Necessary Objects said she was expecting robust orders during the week.
“I’m seeing people next week that I haven’t seen in the showroom in two years,” she said. “I think people didn’t place a lot of fall, and now they are trying to save the season. “I firmly believe it’s going to be an item market,” Gluck-Frankel noted. “Long is very important, pants are very important. Overalls and suspender pants have been just incredible, as are the key layering pieces that go with those — the short knit tops.
“Anything warm and fuzzy is where the business is,” she said. “Everybody wants a little comfort in their lives and we have some acrylic fibers that simulate the luxury fabrics like cashmere and angora.
Bruce Hauptman, national sales manager for All That Jazz, a Vernon, Calif., junior company, said market week would see his retailers finishing back-to-school buying and previewing holiday.
“Our vendors are usually buying 30 to 60 days out,” he said. “They will be looking for Aug. 30 deliveries and the beginning of holiday.”