PARIS — Low-cost textiles from the Far East continue to boom, but high-end European mills are successfully navigating choppy seas, according to organizers of Texworld and Première Vision, which open their doors to visitors here next week.
High-end European firms, PV’s bread and butter, have suffered in recent years from a wave of companies in Asian countries including China, the mainstay of Texworld. Daniel Faure, PV’s president, expects that trend to continue.
“I can’t say that European textile mills are euphoric,” he said.
But business this season won’t be dour necessarily, Faure said, stressing that firms with niche products and creations with “real added value” have thrived.
“There are European companies that have done very well recently,” he said. “But they don’t like to talk about it. They don’t want to share their secret formula with the others.”
Signs of economic recovery in Europe, especially an increase in consumer spending in Germany, augurs well for the season, organizers said.
“Germany is moving in the right direction and usually that is a very good harbinger of things to come for the rest of Europe,” said Stephanie Keukert, who organizes Texworld. “There are also signs of improvement in Italy.”
Growth should also come from America and Asia. Organizers said preregistration numbers were healthy.
Texworld has more reason to feel upbeat than PV. Texworld’s 680 exhibitors are mostly from countries such as India and China, the most direct threats to European mills. Though the fairs don’t admit to being in direct competition, crossover shopping between them has increased, as clothing manufacturers concentrate on the bottom line.
Creativity and innovation are more prodigious at PV, with buyers flocking there to get the best read on trends. This season, PV is pumping even more energy into its trend forums and reorganizing the exhibitors into more-defined sections.
Increasingly, however, buyers are taking the trends from mills exhibiting at PV and asking enterprising mills at Texworld to reproduce them less expensively. That poses a threat to the European textile trade.
On the one hand, European mills have had to reevaluate their customer bases, with the most successful companies making their focus razor sharp in order to offer value to justify their higher prices. While most mills continue to cater to the high end, some have shifted to target mass manufacturers that have begun to relocate a portion of their sourcing and textile buying closer to home to avoid relying too greatly on any one market or supplier.
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“It’s a real trend,” said Faure. “More companies today don’t want to take the risk of putting too much in the same basket. They want to avoid finding themselves in a sticky situation.”
On the other hand, many of Texworld’s mills spot opportunity in higher-end products. They are funneling time and capital into creating such wares, which they hope will appeal to a broader audience and differentiate them from the stiff competition.
“There is much more concentration on quality now from our exhibitors,” said Keukert. “The competition is so great that they have to do it.”
China continues to be a major preoccupation, especially for Europeans. Keukert, however, said concerns that arose after the elimination of quotas had “calmed.” She said Chinese manufacturers had started to develop more at home and also were concentrating on greater quality.
“That means prices will go up,” said Keukert. “China isn’t the golden environment it was.”
India is gaining momentum, she added.
“The Indian mills are very optimistic and they are gaining confidence,” Keukert said. “The government is opening its borders more and this is good for business.”