Jan 29, 2016
2 minutes
Milano Unica New York penalised by adverse weather
Jan 29, 2016
The Milano Unica New York trade show was undoubtedly one of the unexpected collateral victims of the huge snowstorm that paralysed the US East coast. The storm hit particularly fiercely on Sunday 24th January, the opening day of the Italian textile show in New York which ended on Tuesday 26th.
On opening day, the 61 textile manufacturers exhibiting at the Javits Convention Center to showcase their Spring/Summer 2017 collections, saw practically no one. The in-flow of visitors picked up in the two days that followed, reaching a total of 530 clients (80% of them from the USA, 8% from Canada and the remaining 12% from several other countries), in representation of 325 companies.
The show's first edition, held last July, attracted 1,300 buyers, representing 700 companies.
It was stroke of bad luck for Italian textile manufacturers, while the Première Vision show, Milano Unica's competitor, held a few days earlier on 19th and 20th January at Pier 94, enjoyed a full house.
The Italian organisers acknowledged this in their closing press release, stating that Milano Unica's second New York edition "will go down in the annals as one of the most troubled of all."
"We cannot be satisfied. But it was the case of an unforeseeable situation, beyond the organisers' control. We must accept it as such and move on," commented Milano Unica's President, Ercole Botto Paola.
The session, however, gave Milano Unica the chance to launch a new initiative called 'The Fabric Program', in collaboration with the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA). The programme is addressed to young US designers, and will allow them to work in selected Italian fabric manufacturing workshops, in order to give them an awareness of Italian expertise.
As part of this programme, three emerging designers, members of CFDA, will present their collections at the New York Fashion Week, using fabrics supplied free of charge by the Italian exhibitors who signed up for the initiative.
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