As an importer every now and then we need to go overseas to check out trends and to buy in the new seasons stock.
It sounds like great fun, but a it’s a huge amount of work. With 14 plane trips in 21 days we visited London, Hong Kong and several cities in China and India.
Off to London and Hong Kong. For the trends in London we had 5 days to visit some of the big stores such as Zara, East, Hobbs, H & M, Monsoon, Anthropology and Selfridges etc. The weather was freezing! No trouble convincing people to wear scarves here! We also visited the Portobello Road Market, Convent Garden, the V & A Museum gift store and some of the independent clothing stores along the English coast. Back in London we also talked trends with some other importers who supply Europe as well as us. Back to Hong Kong to visit some of the trade fairs as well as window shopping the windows of the Ocean Terminal (Kowloon).
Off to our suppliers in India and China. Love those back alleys of Mumbai, Delhi! Then on to the factories in China. We walked saw about 150 to 200 showrooms and bought from about 30 to 40 of them.
This is what we found….
Retail in England seems to be making a bit of a recovery.
Retail in Hong Kong never lost a beat. If anything it’s stronger than ever. Retailers in Australia would kill for the lines of customers in Hong Kong!
Scarves are still very much “in”, Zara in particular had a much bigger range of scarves than last year, probably double that of last year.
Florals, Bird-prints in pretty colours and a strong ethnic influence is big news overseas!
There are three major colours coming in for the season. More details closer to our launch!
We will be showing all of these and more at our Trade Fair showing at AGHA show in August.
Thank goodness we are back. 14 plane trips in economy class is something one can only take so often. We do these trips to keep on top of trends so our customers can buy the latest fashions but we love getting back home!
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