PARIS — With Première Vision’s parent company GL Events bringing all of its 18 fashion properties under one roof now called The Creative Pole, the biannual trade show is in a transition period.
A year into her tenure, GL Events general director of fashion Florence Rousson is seeking to support brands and exhibitors through expanding programs, such as sponsoring brands’ flight and hotel costs, introducing biannual themes and bringing beauty on board.
Rousson said she has spent the last 12 months on a listening tour, meeting with upstream and downstream suppliers, industrial organizations, federations and brands.
What she’s found is an industry that is floundering.
“The main topic at the moment is the problem that they have no vision of how the market is moving. It’s difficult for them to plan and to know where we go,” she told WWD. That uncertainty is felt across the board, from suppliers to brands. “It’s difficult to have a clear plan and a clear view, where they have to invest and who are the key players in the market.”
With the political and economic winds changing direction seemingly daily, companies are confused.
This applies to both French and foreign entities, with France’s political roller coaster and successive governments over the last year making companies more cautious, and the international threat of new tariffs from the U.S.
“It depends on the companies and the territories, but no one has a clear vision regarding the U.S. at the moment, and they are waiting. Then there is a lag between announcements and what will be the reality and how to implement,” she said. As a result, many businesses are in a holding pattern.
Between the now-averted maritime strike that had been anticipated for January and the unpredictability of potential U.S. tariffs, brands need to be ready for anything so as not to find themselves on the back foot.
“It’s been quite a turbulent few years between COVID-19 and earthquakes [in Turkey]. There’s just a lot of uncertainty,” said Ruth Farrell, general manager of textiles at Eastman’s Naia, which was showing at PV. The fiber producer works with both luxury and contemporary brands and sees the level of uncertainly increasing the workload for brands.
“We’ve got some brands here saying they’re literally now looking at every sourcing option to ensure they have a level of diversification,” she said.
Eastman’s Naia stand at Première Vision
Brands banking less on long-term planning are on the rise, according to data from IFM Economic Observatory director Gildas Minvielle. The group surveyed participants at Première Vision, and found that brands planning for the long-term had fallen 10 percent in just one year to 48 percent. In contrast, 19 percent of brands said they are seeking short-term sourcing solutions, up from just 13 percent last year.
Brands are also investing less in sourcing, looking instead at strengthening sales channels. Investing in digital and increasing the attractiveness of their physical stores were top concerns for brands, along with diversification. In the survey, 32.5 percent of brands indicated that launching new product lines or into new markets was a top concern, up from 22.7 percent a year ago.
Know-how vs. All Knowing
Première Vision will focus on biannual themes, with “Savoir-Faire” the subject for this edition and “Innovation & Tech” coming in September. The main stage this season was set for talks on craftsmanship, while a competing smaller area had several companies devoted to tech, particularly AI solutions.
Speaking on a panel devoted to French savior faire, Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode executive president Pascal Morand remarked on the dichotomy of the two seemingly divergent tracks at opposite ends of the Porte de Versailles convention center.
“This digital age has only just begun, AI has only just begun, digitalization has only just begun,” he said. “That necessarily creates a need to return to ‘savior faire’ for the designers of great talent, and also for all those who can appreciate it; so, for the public, for the customers.”
The two don’t have to be in opposition, Morand said, noting that AI and tech can be used to optimize sales. “But savior faire has deep economic and technological meaning,” he said. As AI rises, people may crave more sensory experiences and come to appreciate the monetary value of a handmade garment.
Focusing on getting that message to consumers is key, while Comité Colbert president and chief executive officer Bénédicte Epinay addressed the labor shortage of artisanal workers but added that they are using tech to promote the message. The committee’s TikTok videos with the “savoir faire” hashtag have received more than 700 million views and helped fuel recruitment drives to fill those artisanal ranks.
Sandro chief marketing officer Augustin Letellier, who joined the contemporary brand from Giambattista Valli, said that communicating artisanal value to consumers is important at all price points.
Sandro creates their prototypes by hand in a Parisian atelier, but produces in India, Turkey and China, among other countries. “They are capable of replicating the level of quality that we produce on a prototype at scale, since we have volumes that are not quite the same [as luxury houses],” he said.
Brands are also increasingly nearshoring, with one supplier mentioning diversifying sourcing from Latin America for the U.S. and Turkey for the European market. Morocco is an increasingly popular manufacturing hub for Europe as well. “Morocco has managed to effectively play its cards right by positioning itself on a local level for European brands,” Minvielle said. One major importer is Zara parent company Inditex, which is helping to strengthen the industry there.
China remains the world’s top clothing exporter, holding 30 percent of the global market and dwarfing its second closest rival Bangladesh, which produces 8.6 percent of the world’s clothing. But China has fallen from its 2014 peak of 39 percent.
Some of that decline is due to increased costs, and China’s own move to transition its factories from apparel assembly to upstream production of yarn and fabric. As a result, Chinese businesses themselves are starting to look abroad.
“When it comes to clothing, China invests directly in certain neighboring countries such as Vietnam, Bangladesh and Cambodia,” Minvielle said, shifting production across the region in search of lower costs.
Inside Première Vision
ALEXANDRE GALLOSI
A one-stop-shop MannyAI covers the supply chain to increase efficiencies for brands. It takes a sketch to a sample, tracks purchase orders and real-time inventory at tier one and tier two suppliers, as well as “intelligent allocation” with AI being able to assess production capacity, while comparing design specs and similarity across styles to find synergies and automate fabric utilization.
For buyers, it cuts down the inefficiency and uncertainty by tracking what is selling and sets pricing, including factoring in labor costs. Those latter services are “slightly controversial,” MannyAI CEO Shruti Grover admitted.
“Right now, the main issue on the brand side is that it’s super siloed, and newness is moving at such a fast rate” that brands are creating a lot of inefficiencies within their supply chains. The AI not only optimizes fabric selection and usage, but eliminates administrative tasks like writing purchase orders or adjusting pricing, so buyers can focus on tracking trends on platforms like TikTok. “And that’s what they should be deciding. They should be deciding the buy.” The tech will do the rest.
MannyAI is set to launch a partnership with a major brand soon, and Grover said that even though the brand has upped the number of styles they release each week, they have reduced their stock by 30 percent, resulting in significant cost savings, more full-price sales and a boost in profitability.
Sustainability Slowdown
Recycled synthetic yarn producer Unifi launched its new multifunctional yarn Integ8, made from recycled bottles. The new yarn has applications especially in workout wear, as brands are looking for a more sustainable alternative to Spandex. The company also makes Repreve recycled fiber.
But across the board, brands are in a holding pattern when it comes to sustainability, said Unifi director of marketing Melissa Henkle.
“Right now, everyone wants to do a lot more research in sustainability, because it’s kind of like the Wild West,” she said. While many brands made early moves by using buzzy materials, they’ve pulled back.
“Folks have realized recycled means different things across the board and it’s really hard to avoid greenwashing,” Henkle said. Making sure their claims are verifiable and in line with their published standards presents a new challenge. “Brands at first only stayed at the top level. Now they have to go all the way to the source of the raw material. Folks have just been pausing to learn.”
Many next-gen materials makers seconded that sentiment. “Each brand has their own approach to risk,” said Spiber executive vice president Kenji Higashi. Brands stay in the R&D stage for longer, deciding what mix works. “They want to really ensure that that it all makes sense, and also in terms of quality, durability, some of the brands are very, very careful to make sure that whatever they put on the market meets their standards.”
Spiber launched its first luxury partnership with Burberry last year, and Higashi said that more high-end items will be revealed later this year.
Farrell from Eastman’s Naia added that the high street is in high gear, moving fast to hit publicly announced sustainability goals by 2030.
“A lot of the fast-fashion brands are probably accelerating quicker than anybody else. The bigger ones, they realize that they’re under the spotlight to deliver,” she said. They are doing the due diligence on audits, certifications, chemical use and life-cycle assessments to make sure they are not falling afoul of the EU’s new anti-greenwashing rules.
“They just want the security that whatever they’re working with, whatever they are saying [about a product], it is proven,” she said.
Naia works with brands including Stella McCartney at the luxury level, as well as Reformation, H&M and Inditex.
While there is pushback on environmental targets in the U.S., European Union regulations and targets are still driving many global brands. “Everybody’s worried about the dynamics right now, in particular around sustainability, but it’s not gone. There is anxiety, whether it is sustainability or recession [but] we’re seeing genuine action, crystallization of intent,” Farrell said.
Inside Première Vision
ALEXANDRE GALLOSI
Shorter Stays and Looking to September
Following a post-pandemic downturn in attendance, there was an increase in visitors from Asia this season, as evidenced by a large central booth occupied by brands from Korea.
Exhibitors reported heavy foot traffic to their booths, but many were research expeditions as brands are “very cautious, and some of them want to assess the risks, because there are a lot of unknowns right now,” one textile exhibitor said.
The major fashion houses were also in the mix, with one exhibitor reporting that representatives from Stella McCartney, Louis Vuitton and Kering all descended upon their booth at the same time. Overall, the trade show still holds a spot on people’s calendars, albeit for a shorter duration, added another exhibitor.
“It used to be the three-day event, but now it feels like a day trip — people fly in in the morning, arrive before lunch for meetings and fly back the same day or next morning,” she said.
The consensus was that attendees would take advantage of Première Vision’s proximity to Charles de Gaulle airport to fly in early Tuesday — as evidenced by the long lines to check carry-on bags at the convention center’s doors. The exhibitor said she would head out in the middle of day two, with a smaller team manning the stand on day three, which had no programming.
Rousson seeks to counter the truncated convention by adding increasing networking opportunities and matchmaking services, as well as bringing in white label beauty product developers for a new category in September.
“The idea is not to remain only a fair for the sourcing of textiles, but to understand how the brands are moving in terms of needs,” Rousson told WWD, noting that beauty is currently a booming category for many fashion brands and could provide new growth channels.
“We will have [the section] to help them to understand what could be new opportunities for them as well, just to offer them the opportunity to see that there are other possibilities to reinforce their brands with new ranges of products.”
Moving Première Vision back to a September berth, after trying July for the last two years, will put it more in sync with the fashion calendar. The move has received positive feedback from suppliers, including some that want to return after skipping the past couple of seasons. The fall edition will be bigger than last July’s, Rousson promised.
