na dozen well-known Spanish fashion brands, including Camper, Sita Murt and Yerse, are challenging the pandemic this Tuesday in a ‘made in Spain’ showroom that will be physically open during the virtual ‘Fashion Week’ in New York , to get closer to large buyers in the United States.
FashionLab Agency, a ‘showroom’ created by two Spanish entrepreneurs, Raquel Navalón and Anna Giralt, will open its doors between February 16 and 18 for the fourth edition of this event in which the ICEX (Spanish Institute of Foreign Trade) and which will act as the only fair for face-to-face fashion stores on these dates.
Spanish brands, such as Homers, which in some cases repeat their participation in the event, seek the success of previous editions, in which agreements have been reached with major wholesale buyers in the US market, including multi-brand stores such as Anthopologie or the large Neiman Marcus department store.
With many of its competitors closed due to the pandemic and in the middle of the winter season in New York, FashionLab is, on the contrary, expanding premises and equipment to offer buyers teleconferences with designers, virtual appointments and also face-to-face so that they can see the collections for fall 2021 in person. “What we are offering this campaign (…), which this time is more powerful than in previous ones due to the fact that the big fairs are being digital, is to do a ’boutique trade show’ (fair for fashion stores) Here highly selected brands and ‘buyers’ (buyers) also very selected participate “, its founder Anna Giralt explains to EFE.
“In our case we sell women’s products, with a medium-high price, so buyers want to see and touch the product” and many times even try it on, highlights the also specialist in fashion business strategies in the US, who trusts that for this reason “whoever comes, will buy, and will buy more than one line.”
who has come
FashionLab has closed 66 appointments for the three days that the event lasts and precisely in the 15 that it took at the time of the interview, in the middle of the day this Tuesday, the same trend has been observed: “who has come, has bought more one line “.
Regarding buyers, Giralt points out that for a brand to be well distributed wholesale in the US it must “have a very secure base of ‘specialty boutiques’ or what would be called ‘concept stores’: multi-brand stores They sell all kinds of products, usually from the same range and aimed at the same end consumer, “he says.
Compared to other wholesale buyers in the country such as department stores, which have been closing or have debts, multi-brand stores “have a very loyal end customer, with whom they communicate not only in the store but at a much more personalized level, at via mobile phone or email, “he adds. “That now everything is virtual and we can offer something, always keeping the health and safety measures and those dictated by the city and state of New York to make a safe space, it has been an advantage to be able to do this event,” he concludes.
The brands that participate in this edition and that share the common denominator of making a product with high quality materials are Camper, Sita Murt, Yerse, Sea People, Homers, Sinful, Mirror in the sky, Tinta Style and Lola Casademunt.
