MELBOURNE: Fashion Exposed launched yesterday at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre, with exhibitors optimistic about potential sales and busy foot traffic on the ground.
Over 500 exhibitors are on show at the fashion industry trade event, showing spring/summer 2009/10 collections to over 3800 visitors. Event organiser Marie Kinsella from Australian Exhibitions and Conferences was very happy with this day one attendance figure.
A number of new exhibitors are in the mix, including Polish inspired womenswear brand Magdalena Duma and creative label Alexis Dawn. They appear among long established labels such as outdoor apparel brand Yarra Trail and the Pacific Brands lingerie stable.
Additional attractions include regular catwalk shows with the latest collections from exhibiting labels. Also industry talks held by the Australian Retail Association cover topics such as marketing fashion brands and stores, visual merchandising and buying profitability.
Over 600 exhibitors attended an evening cocktail event, where Kinsella welcomed the crowd.
"This is an extremely important industry event for independent retailers," she said.
Chairman of Fashion Exposed Graham Boyd and exhibition manager Elissa Duke announced awards for the best exhibition stands in fashion, bags and accessories and footwear.
The best fashion stand was awarded to menswear label Axel Vani, the best stand for bags and accessories went to Duomo Holdings and best stand for footwear was awarded to Jumbo Ugg Boots.
Fashion Exposed and the co-located Australian Shoe Fair and Bags and Accessories Fair, runs until Tuesday.
For more news on the event see this week's issue of Ragtrader.