New York Fashion Shows Keep Buyers Running

Retailers make move from Pier 94 to Javits in hunt for the best price

By Michael Hart -- Tradeshow Week, 1/24/2005

New York—Choying Rangdol, a women's wear buyer from Seattle, rushed from a taxi into Moda Manhattan, one of three fashion-related tradeshows that Business Journals held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center Jan. 9–11. He'd just taken the 20-block trip from Accessorie Circuit Intermezzo Collections, the women's wear and accessories show ENK Intl. held on the same dates at The UnConvention Center, Pier 94.

Rangdol said it was his second round-trip of the day, checking the higher-end Intermezzo for styles and trends, then heading downtown to troll Moda for lower-priced versions for his retail store.

At about the same time, Joan Evans, an attendee from Baltimore, was headed across the lobby of the Javits from Moda to FAME, another of the Business Journals' shows, for even lower-priced women's wear items, with the same idea in mind.

Thus it went at the first of three so-called Fashion Weeks in 2005, during which countless women's wear retailers descend on New York City to purchase stock for the upcoming season. Those looking for the top-line products both shop and buy at ENK Intl.'s Accessorie Circuit Intermezzo Collections, which attracted 1,064 exhibitors and around 7,500 attendees to about 280,000 square feet of 10'×10' booths spanning the three piers of the UnConvention Center.

Down a notch or two in price and style were Business Journals' AccessoriesTheShow, FAME and Moda Manhattan, attracting a combined 1,112 exhibitors and more than 17,000 attendees to 111,000 net sq. ft. at Javits.

Besides the exhibitors at the two tradeshow venues, others with showrooms in the city opened them up to retailers as well, creating what has become the thrice-yearly phenomenon known informally as Fashion Week.

"There are certain shows that have to be in New York," said Mike Fiorentino, sales director at Pier 94.

The concept began 15 years ago when Fiorentino, then sales manager at the Plaza Hotel, helped Elyse Kroll, now president of ENK Intl., organize an event with designers set up in hotel rooms.

"But her show outgrew the Plaza," Fiorentino said, and she moved in 1997 to what was then an abandoned cruise ship pier. Today, ENK Intl. puts on a dozen shows a year spread out over three piers (along with four shows in Los Angeles and another being launched this month in Las Vegas). Furthermore, ENK is planning to spend $30 million on improvements to the piers, which are leased from the city of New York.

Meanwhile, in 1998, Business Journals bought from Ullo Intl. the show that would become AccessoriesTheShow in a virtual fire sale. That first year, it attracted 150 exhibitors and 2,500 attendees, according to Britton Jones, president and CEO of Business Journals.

But Jones persisted and this year, after selling out three shows a year for the past five years, he and general manager Sharon Enright attracted more than 10,500 attendees to AccessoriesTheShow alone. Business Journals added FAME in March 2001 and Moda Manhattan in January 2002.

FAME, held twice a year through 2004, competed for the same type of exhibitors and attendees as Advanstar Communications' Industry 212, which the company abruptly suspended last September. Business Journals quickly grabbed Industry 212's January dates at Javits and turned FAME into a four-times-a-year event.

As a result, this month's edition — coinciding with ENK Intl.'s shows — has experienced a 20-percent boost in attendees, Jones said.

"That was a turning point," Enright said of Advanstar's departure from the New York fashion tradeshow market.

ENK Intl. markets its accessories and women's wear shows as the top-of-the-line, attracting the trendiest designers and highest-end retailers. ENK Intl.'s press director, Coleman McCartan, said the edited show has a 90-percent retention rate among exhibitors.

"Our designers wouldn't go to some other show," McCartan said. "It's a problem for a designer who's not in the show."

Maybe. Bob Dee of BellDini in New York, who wasn't able to get into Intermezzo, did exhibit in Moda. He said a number of designers at Moda and FAME are there under similar circumstances.

Enright takes the opposite position in marketing her shows.

"At ENK, it's always the same exhibitors at the same booths," she said.

Enright said that at each show about 10 percent of the exhibitors would be new. Ironically, that is the same percentage of new exhibitors McCartan used to demonstrate ENK Intl.'s consistency in retaining returning exhibitors.