NEW YORK — The Train trade show collided with the Blizzard of ’06, which blanketed sections of the Northeast with more than two feet of snow.
And though attendance was down by about 26 percent, there were no complaints from the exhibitors inside the booths. Organizers said there were 2,334 visitors to the Terminal Stores on Manhattan’s West Side during the three-day period that kicked off Feb. 12. For the first day, attendance was about 50 percent lower than the first day norm of past installments of the show, organized by Fédération Française du Prêt-á-Porter Féminin. Still, representatives from stores such as Neiman Marcus, Harvey Nichols, Henry Lehr and Galleries Lafayette braved the harsh weather.
Among the 100 designers at the show, Rodrigo Trussardi, designer of the Super Suite Seventy Seven collection, said the turnout was great. “We saw between 70 and 100 clients so far,” Trussardi said on day two. Super Suite Seventy Seven is manufactured in Brazil but is based here. For fall, the collection features handmade cashmere skirts, jackets and cardigans, and beautiful romantic blouses. Tops wholesale between $70 and $90, cashmere jackets for $188.
“We’re selling a lot of smaller specialty stores, but I would love to eventually do department stores,” Trussardi said, noting that many of the visiting retailers have been from countries such as Germany or Japan.
Bahar Shahpar’s collection, Agricult, an eco-friendly collection based in Brooklyn, was doing a fine job of attracting retailers, especially those who had to travel to get to the show. “[On the first day] traffic was slow, but I saw a lot of West Coast people and European buyers from Galleries Lafayette and Bon Marché. I think anyone who was close by wasn’t able to make it,” Shahpar said. “One of the big reasons we chose to do this show was to give those buyers who don’t have the chance to come to the showroom the opportunity to see the collection.”
Her fall collection consists of 28 pieces and ranges in wholesale price from $65 for an organic cotton pullover to $215 for a hemp silk linen dress.
The Paris-based contemporary collection Billtornade was hoping to break into the U.S. market at this show. Yoahm Baroukh, who heads the export division of the brand, said he was interested in finding a showroom here to work with the collection. “We want to start slowly and respect the customer,” Baroukh said. “We would explain to them that we wouldn’t be distributing everywhere.”
Related Articles
You May Also Like
At Billtornade, the draw was the prints and reasonable prices. Dresses wholesale between $70 and $170, and coats in wool and cashmere blends wholesale between $132 and $144. A long cashmere tunic wholesales for $80.
“So far, we’re in 365 stores in Europe, and we have eight shops in Paris, but we see a good entry into this market here,” Baroukh said.