Exhibitor and buyer number has increased at Intertextile Pavilion Shenzhen, which concluded last Saturday, reflecting the strength of the Southern China fashion sector. The fair welcomed record 971 exhibitors from 12 countries and regions and 17,664 trade buyers from 35 countries and regions.

Shenzhen is fast establishing itself as China’s fashion capital – with some 1,000 fashion brands, 2,000 garment companies and 30,000 fashion designers based in the city – and this year’s strong growth confirms Intertextile Pavilion Shenzhen as the industry’s platform of choice for suppliers to connect with leading brands from this sector, according to organisers: 35% more exhibitors took part this year, which in turn attracted 13% more trade buyers.

Some of the big domestic brands sourcing at the fair this year included Bosideng, Elegant Prosper, Heilan Group, Marisfrolg, Peacebird and Purcotton, while the fair’s strong exhibitor profile and Shenzhen’s location adjacent to Hong Kong attracted global fashion labels such as Debenhams, Evisu, Giorgio Armani, Givenchy, Ralph Lauren and Triumph to source at the fair.

“The reason we exhibit here is there are many young designers and small brands in Shenzhen that have high potential to become big in the near future,” said Atsushi Yamazaki, President, Crystal Cloth, Japan. “We’ve already met around 20 that we can work with that have a lot of potential. Our company has been in China for five years now, and we’ve seen a big improvement in the quality of buyers. This fair is effective for us to meet existing customers as well as new ones, and to increase our sales. We can find big opportunities to grow here.”

China, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the UK were represented by exhibitors again at this year’s fair, while India, Indonesia, Thailand and Turkey were new faces in 2018. This year’s top 10 buyer countries and regions, excluding Mainland China, were Hong Kong, Taiwan, the US, Korea, India, Japan, Brazil, Australia, the UK and Macau.

“On the first day morning, there were already many buyers packed into our booth – both old and new customers. They were highly interested in our products. We’ve had mills and fashion designers visiting us, and they’ve been highly interested in our products. We’ve got very great results so far. I’ve been really impressed by the quality of the buyers as well, but not only this, the quality of their fabrics our designs will be printed on is also very good,” commented Alex Poyner, Print Designer, Fairbairn & Wolf Studio, UK.

“I’m sourcing for our high-end, luxury collections, and this fair definitely has enough range here to match our needs,” said Gabriela Pardo De Andrade, Fashion Designer, Gabii G Fashion, Spain. “It’s one of the best fairs I’ve been to. There is everything you could want here: from synthetic to natural, man-made to machine-made, and fabrics to accessories. Just for embroidery products alone I saw so many potential items to source. I’ve found it useful having the international exhibitors here, and have visited some from Taiwan and India so far, as well as Chinese suppliers. It’s definitely worth to come here as an international buyer. It’s useful to see the fashion trends from other parts of the world; it’s quite different here to Europe. This has been one of the best fairs I’ve been to in terms of fashion.”

“I’m a lingerie designer for a local brand and am sourcing new fabrics from overseas exhibitors because we want to follow the international trends, commented Ashley Lin, Designer, Shenzhen Huijie, China. “I’ve found some potential exhibitors from Taiwan and Korea so far. This fair is important for us to visit because, nowadays, we are always looking for new materials and doing new designs throughout the whole year, so we visit here as well as both Intertextile Shanghai editions.”

The next Intertextile Pavilion Shenzhen will be held from 4-6 July 2019.

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