Mood Dampened at MAGIC
LAS VEGAS — There was lots of drama at the trade shows here this week, but it had less to do with hem lengths and suit silhouettes and more to do with timing and tariffs.
Retailers attending Project, WWDMAGIC, Liberty Fairs, Agenda and the PGA Show were a bit jittery as lower traffic levels and looming tariffs weighed on their spirits and a dent in their budgets.
Adding to their angst was the upcoming shift in venue and dates for the February edition. After bringing together all of the Informa shows at the Las Vegas Convention Center — Project Men’s and Women’s, WWDMAGIC, FN Platform,
Pool, Stitch and Sourcing — the news was released Monday that all of the shows will be relocating to Mandalay Bay Convention Center for one season.
And the dates are also being shifted, moving ahead to Feb. 5 to 7, a nontraditional Wednesday through Friday, that is about a week earlier than usual and once again overlaps with New York Fashion Week.
Tom Nastos, chief commercial officer of Informa Markets Fashion Division, said the dates were chosen to “give the opportunity for the men’s community to travel here [after New York Fashion Week: Men’s, set for Feb. 3 to 5]. For us, the goal is to keep the entire fashion community together. We accomplished that here, and for February, we have to move to Mandalay. But for the next decade, we’re back on our traditional dates.”
Sharifa Murdock, cofounder of Liberty Fairs, was checking her contract with the Sands Expo Center, where her show and Agenda set up shop, to see if she could change the dates. By presstime, she hadn’t heard back yet on whether the space will be available.
But she was frustrated by the change, saying she was a bit blindsided by the news: “But we want to collaborate and not compete, so we’ll follow suit and make sure we make it as easy as possible for our brands and buyers,” she said.
The organizers of Agenda did not respond to requests for comment on their plans for February.
Mark Beckham, vice president of marketing for the CFDA, said his group is continuing to “work with the trade shows to make the best of the scheduling challenge. Two of the three days don’t overlap so there will be designers who aren’t affected.” And he said the plan, as it was this February, is to frontload NYFW: Men’s with the larger designers showing at the beginning of the week so editors, buyers and brands can fly to Vegas if they choose.
That being said, retailers attending the shows this time tried to concentrate on the issues at hand as they shopped the shows for their spring assortments.
Matt Beall, president of the Floridabased Bealls stores, admitted traffic has been down but he’s begun to see some “signs of stabilization for the first time in a while.”
He said his stores have experienced decent back-to-school sales, thanks to a mix that has been tweaked to appeal to a younger customer. “We’ve been making a big effort to go after the youth business,” he said. “We were also in stock and ready.”
One executive, who declined to be identified, said business for most stores has been challenging, exacerbated by the uncertainty around tariffs. “That’s created margin concerns for retailers and brands,” he said. “So commitments aren’t being made and everything is being scrutinized.”
Rick Helfenbein, president and chief executive officer of the American Apparel & Footwear Association, hosted a town hall meeting at MAGIC to explain the situation with the tariffs and help exhibitors and stores get a better handle on the potential impact.
Helfenbein said President Trump has targeted other countries for what he saw as an unfair playing field in terms of imports and exports. First it was Japan, then China, Vietnam, Mexico. “It bounces around,” he said, “but it’s always a target that is incapable of fighting back.”
The bottom line, he said, is that despite Tuesday’s announcement that the imposition of tariffs on China are being delayed, the fashion industry should still be braced for taxes of at least 10 percent and probably as high as 25 percent — and there are not a lot of options. “There’s no place you can go that he hasn’t threatened,” Helfenbein said. Prices are bound to go up and the situation “is likely to blow us right into a recession.”
And if Trump is not reelected, don’t expect a Democratic president to be a white knight, Helfenbein added, saying the party “loves sticking barbs” into China and the situation could potentially become even worse under a new regime.
With that casting a pall on the overall mood of the show, there were still some trends and saleable spring pieces that emerged at the shows.
At the Doneger Group’s openingmorning session Monday — which included a combined men’s and women’s overview this time — Patty Leto, senior vice president of merchandising, said the “ongoing transformation” of the industry and changing shopping habits of consumers require retailers to “develop an emotional connection” with their customers and provide an “edited, curated statement” that speaks to them as individuals.
Doneger’s merchandising team said in order to meet these requirements, there are several big ideas merchants need to embrace for spring. For both genders, nature and natural materials, the influx of active influences in sportswear and businesswear, and a desire by customers to express their individuality is driving the market.
In terms of key items, this includes camp shirts, sustainable denim, utility vests, drawstring shorts, unconstructed linen sport coats and brightly colored outerwear for men, and lightweight sweaters, utility jackets, relaxed jeans, soft structured pants and floral maxidresses for women.
Ken Giddon, president of Rothmans men’s specialty stores in New York, liked the unusual gifts he found at Time & Oak at Pool and Trixie & Milo’s vintage-inspired flasks, as well as Paige denim’s jeans, Fidelity’s glen plaid denim trousers, Swet Tailor’s hybrid pants and Stone Rose shirts he found at Project. At Liberty, Seavees’ slip-on shoes, Benson’s sport shirts, Nifty Genius’ camo bombers and John Varvatos’s collection caught his eye.
Unlike many of the larger stores, he was upbeat. “I think it’s a truly exciting time in the industry,” he said. “There’s more change than ever and you’ve got to be alert and awake. The ball is moving faster than ever and you have to move with it.”
Also upbeat was Peter Leff, executive vice president of wholesale for Tommy Bahama, whose technical- skewed products are among its bestsellers.
“Our business is good,” he said, adding the brand has a strong business with specialty stores who have gravitated to its Palm Coast polo, which features body mapping for ventilation, the Delray technical T- shirt and polo, and the Boracay stretch bottoms.
Andrew Berg, president of Robert Graham, said he was “feeling positive” overall after experiencing strength in both the company’s 33 brick-and-mortar stores as well as its e-commerce site.
“We haven’t experienced any major bumps,” he said, although he did admit to some trepidation about tariffs. “It’s on everybody’s radar,” he said. “We’re concerned about the uncertainty, and the hardest thing to manage in this business is uncertainty.”
Sarah Israel, senior buyer of women’s for Zulily, said she was shopping for vendors with domestic production since they have
“an extremely short lead time, which enables them to chase the trends in real time.”
For the fall and winter season, she is expecting consumers to respond to rainbow colorblocking, ribbing and trim, colorful sweatshirts and sweaters and vividly colored sneakers. “I will be specifically looking for silhouettes that we can potentially use to incorporate this trend.”
Other trends she was searching for in Vegas included animal prints, dark florals and pieces with Victorian- style puffed sleeves.
Here are some of the highlights from the Las Vegas shows. ►
In the midst of tariff uncertainties, retailers shopping the trade shows in Las Vegas sought spring pieces to inspire customers to shop. “We’re concerned about the uncertainty, and the hardest thing to manage in this business is uncertainty.”