In 2010, Fashion Exposed celebrates a decade in business. Assia benmedjdoub asks director marie Kinsella to reveal some of its key turning points.
When the first instalment of Fashion Exposed took place in Melbourne 10 years ago, the exhibition hall was surrounded by security vehicles, mounted police units and rioters along nearby Clarendon Street.
There was Marie Kinsella trying to kick-start a trade fair; there they were kicking up a fuss in the name of fair trade. “The first edition coincided with the World Economic Forum,” the event organiser recalls.
“The whole city was basically shut down and we were asked to move our fair out of that timing. I said no. Everyone had to come in through the back of Port Melbourne because they had shut down all the main roads.”
While the forum was set inside the Crown Casino complex, Microsoft founder Bill Gates was also scheduled to speak at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre during the course of the week. The security was so extreme, Kinsella was forced to open the co-located show at 7am and have delegates cleared by 2pm that day.
“And they closed the car park,” she laughs. “No cars were allowed in. This was on top of the fact buyers and suppliers could only come through one non-major arterial road at the back of Port Melbourne. Still, many exhibitors maintain it was their best show ever because anyone who went there, went to buy.”
A year earlier, Kinsella’s company Australian Exhibitions and Conferences had successfully tendered for the inaugural fair. Prior to the establishment of Fashion Exposed, two major buying groups, Frontline and Australian Retailers Limited (ARL), had run separate trade events each season just one week apart.
This meant clothing wholesalers would need to shift their garments from Mooney Valley Racecourse one week to the opposing event at Flemington Racecourse the next. Four major suppliers locked arms to develop one independent trade show in 1999, and immediately went to market for organisers.
These included representatives from Pacific Brands, Duchamp, Breakaway and Yarra Trail – many of whom, including John Gleason (Duchamp) and Graham Boyd (Pacific Brands), still sit on the official Fashion Exposed committee. The two buying groups were also invited to join the board, and today Ray Halliwell from Frontline Stores and Chris Morgan from ARL remain.
“By the third showing of Fashion Exposed, both ARL and Frontline ceased running their own events and worked together to achieve an independent show,” Kinsella says.
“Because there was such a strong focus on menswear – ARL were a menswear buying group – the first couple of events had a men’s focus. It was after the first few showings we started to build womenswear.”
The greatest turning point was to come at the tenth installment of Fashion Exposed, when the event was relocated to Sydney’s Convention and Exhibition Centre. Five halls measuring at 25,000sqm were fully booked with exhibitor stands and an unprecedented 12,021 visitors attended the three-day showcase. Compare this with a humble 6000sqm floor for the first edition of Fashion Exposed in 2000.
“There was this great curiosity about what the event actually was,” Kinsella says. “We could tell by our audience of retailers that we weren’t getting large numbers of buyers from New South Wales and Queensland. So we thought, well instead of taking Mohammed to the mountain, we’ll take the mountain to Mohammed. People came in droves.”
Have the same numbers been generated since? “Not quite,” Kinsella concedes.
Structural changes to the wholesale industry (see page 28) have affected the way business is conducted in the ragtrade, which is partly the driving force behind Kinsella’s push to create a ‘one stop shop’ trade show.
In addition to covering all major categories – clothing, footwear, accessories, lingerie – a host of industry seminars, catwalk shows and live programs have been introduced over the years to meet buyer needs.
The Australian Retailers Association ‘Hot Half Hour’ sessions have had the most consistent pulling power, with the industry group offering practical advice in short, sharp bursts. Other initiatives have been less successful, Kinsella admits.
“One initiative that didn’t work was when we did a major area of the exhibition as ‘Eco Fashion. The take up was really poor as suppliers wanted to be grouped in their respective areas such as womenswear or menswear, so we have integrated this into the floor plan.”
She is more optimistic about the newly launched Fashion Exposed Club, an online platform established to boost sales opportunities.
“We’re pushing it as Fashion Exposed Live – where you meet at the actual event twice a year, while having an online buying opportunity all year round. Fashion Exposed has always been more than just booth after booth of next season apparel.”
• Australian Exhibitions and Conferences (AEC) stages 11 trade events per year, with director Marie Kinsella describing Fashion Exposed as “one of the most demanding and rewarding”. Five full-time staff work on the trade show, complemented by an eight-person marketing department and a three-person operations department. A dedicated call centre spends one quarter of the year just on Fashion Exposed events. Kinsella aims to launch a new trade show every year under AEC and has done so since launching the company in 1997.
• The event firm is already planning the spring/summer showcase in March 2011 and books exhibition halls five years in advance. “So we have to work out what we’re going to need spacewise – how many halls at Darling Harbour, how many halls at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre,” Kinsella says. “It’s a gamble. We don’t have to contract until a year out but if you underestimate, you miss the opportunity due to other bookings over you. We start heavily planning about eight months out.”
• Buyers are notified of the event 12 weeks from the start date. Exhibitor stands can be sold a year in advance, but organisers generally wait until seven months out to actively sell.
• Fashion Exposed has both a committee and an advisory board. The committee meets three to four times a year to discuss visitor numbers and other strategic information. Graham Boyd, former director of Boydex Australia (Pacific Brands), is the original chairman and remains in that position on the board. Other current board members include Olav Uittenbosch from Breakaway and former Yarra Trail director Tom Latham. Members of the advisory board include Australian Fashion Partners director Serena Beirne and Sass clothing founder Talitha Becker.