News Type: General

Denim trade fair Kingpins has announces that it is moving the venue of its Amsterdam show, which until now has been held at the former gasworks complex Westergasfabriek, to SugarCity in the town of Halfweg. The relocation, which will be implemented from the April 2020 edition onwards, will see the event’s footprint grow by 40 percent in square footage, from 70,000-square-feet to 100,000-square-feet.

The location and interior itself shares many of the same attributes that have come to define Kingpins Amsterdam, with organisers of the event describing an “industrial grittiness and historic soul that is the ideal backdrop for the most progressive sourcing show in the denim industry.”

Founder of Kingpins Show, Andrew Olah, said: “Our original Amsterdam venue has seen us grow from a show with barely 37 exhibitors to one with more than 100 exhibitors and nearly a dozen activations in six years. We have expanded out of the Gashouder building into three others and added a series of tents. As much as we love the Gashouder and Westerpark, we have dreams and goals for the show that don’t fit under that amazing blue dome. We have been looking for a space that captures the spirit of Kingpins Amsterdam and pushes us to the next level. I believe we have found it.”

STANDARD PROJECT stands for a conceptional clothing and product line that reinterprets classic day-to-day wardrobes, working places and homes. The philosophy is rooted in the belief that good design can and should be part of the everyday life.

Breaking fashion’s basic principle is, to constantly evolve every single season in order to increase consumption, while STANDARD PROJECT strikes a countermovement. The brand sets its goal to create thoughtful items one by one based on reinterpretations of elementary standards. This path leads to an artistic play between fashionable but also timeless products which are unique but universal and therefore approachable to everyone.

What things do we surround ourselves with and why? How can we create new contemporary and ageless classics, unique yet universal? The main goal is to identify favorite essentials and reinterpret them according to the idea of having a permanent collection of items. Contrarily to the hyper-consuming tempo of fashion, STANDARD PROJECT wants to offer a slow and carefully but at the same time enduring collection.
Less is more! The aim of the brand is to find interesting and significant pieces to revive them with pure looks and material and therefore reduce the design to its essence.

The collection serves as a unique and personal archive: Every single item – from first to last – stands for the testimony that good design is and always will be relevant. Each group of items comes from a specific fashion category and introduces a new set of styles which are being delivered one by one throughout the year. This pace contradicts the long-established seasonal schedule and points out the temporal nature of contemporary fashion. The items are untied to any season, which proofs that good design evokes both, an intellectual and emotional response – timeless, intercultural, boundless.

The design Museum in London will host its new ‘Prada. Front and Back’ exhibition, opening in September 2020. The exhibition will offer unprecedented insight into Prada’s creative approach, inspirations and landmark collaborations. Facing the future, it will explore Prada’s transformation of the idea and practice of fashion and the continuing evolution of a global enterprise. Different sections will reflect the idea of front and back, conveying both the surface of fashion and the creative and industrial infrastructure on which it depends.

Miuccia Prada’s story is unique. Joining the family business in the mid-70s, she turned it into one of the most successful fashion houses in the world, while transforming the landscape of style and culture. With her husband, Patrizio Bertelli, she has changed the way that people dress, redefined how we understand luxury, explored new materials and technologies and invested passionately in art, design and architecture. She has made Prada the essence of modernity.

Burberry has opened its new flagship store at the exclusive Ginza Marronnier building in Tokyo, designed by Riccardo Tisci.

The store, which is the 4th Burberry has opened in Japan in the last 6 months, is the first in the country to reflect the new store concept by chief creative officer Riccardo Tisci and features exclusive items from the S/S 2020 pre-collection, as well as a limited-edition Thomas’s Burberry Monogram print silk scarf in pistachio.

HOT:SECOND is a world first circular economy concept store trading physical products for digital experiences. Open from 10am-10pm from Tuesday 19th-Thursday 21st November, founder Karinna Nobbs has collaborated with innovation studio Holition and 3D artist Emily Switzer to allow you to immersively experience digital fashion garments from pioneering brands including The Fabricant, Carlings and Christopher Raeburn.

The purpose of the beta pop up store is to challenge the notion of clothing ownership, to explore a potentially more sustainable and conscious cycle of production and consumption and to introduce as many people as possible to try digital fashion garments for the first time.

The “currency” of the store is the donation or customisation of an unloved physical garment (the target of which is to “save” 500 pieces of clothing from landfill during the 4 days) because there is no planet B.

This launch event will feature a debate between the partners about the potential future of digital fashion and of course there will be free drinks, good music, clever people and some surprises.

INVISTA’s CORDURA brand introduces its innovative and environmentally friendly solutions developed in partnership with DuPont Tate & Lyle Bio Products. The new innovative, lightweight stretch solution combines the legendary, long-lasting durability of CORDURA fabrics with the biobased performance of Susterra membranes and coatings.

“CORDURA fabrics are constantly seeking out options that help us achieve sustainable environmental benefits through our innovation continuity, and CORDURA fabrics can do just that by helping to extend product usability and lifecycle,” explains Cindy McNaull , Global CORDURA Business Development Director. 

“The textile industry wants innovative solutions that help reduce its environmental footprint, and our goal is to provide long-lasting products that are less frequently replaced. Through our ongoing collaboration with DuPont Tate & Lyle’s Susterra brand, apparel designers are getting access to a wide range of durable fabric technologies that include plant-based high-performance coatings and membranes.”

Everest, the primary fabric manufacturer involved in the project, has integrated bio-based membranes and coatings based on Susterra propane diol from DuPont Tate & Lyle into a series of CORDURA® Naturalle Active endurance fabrics. These Everest fabrics feature a CORDURA Outer Layer coated with a bio-based polyurethane membrane, which accounts for more than 25% of its weight in renewable resources. In addition, the fabrics are engineered to help keep the body dry and comfortable, even in extreme weather conditions. The Susterra propanediol-based membrane has good resistance to hydrolysis, is flexible and elastic even at very low temperatures, and allows integration of membranes into stretch fabrics for added mobility.

Stone Island has selected the city of Toronto and its renowned Yorkville Avenue to open its first store in Canada, expanding its presence in the North American market. This opening marks the brand’s third store in North America after opening in New York and Los Angeles.

The store features large corner windows and covers an area of over 190 sqm across two levels, creating ample exhibition space for the Stone Island and Shadow Project collections.

The interior design follows the concept used for Stone Island stores created by Marc Buhre, industrial designer from Heidelberg (Germany) and founder of Zeichenweg TM architectural firm. Each element of the system has been created to work together in a highly functional design.

The bush-hammered stone flooring is also used on the walls, interspersed with parts in through-colour MDF and metallic mesh on a steel substructure. Furnishings are in black-stained natural oak, hangers are composed of carbon bars and anodized aluminium and shelves are in shades of anthracite.

Italian footwear appeals to foreign markets: in the first six months of 2019 Italian exports for the sector increased significantly by +7.1% in value (the average price is now 47.55 Euro/pair, +8.2%). This figure comes from the report on the Italian Footwear Industry, First half of 2019 – that was prepared by the Confindustria Moda Research Centre for Assocalzaturifici. The snapshot to emerge from the sectoral report reveals that, despite the performance of exports, certain difficulties still remain due primarily to chronically weak domestic consumption – after a decade of slow decline, in the first half of this year the reduction in household spending intensified (-3.7% in quantity, with much more negative trends for traditional retail). To this we must add the climate of uncertainty at an international level: from the probable continuation of trade tensions and protectionist approaches, to the slowdown of major economies (foremostly China and Germany), through to the lack of a recovery in key markets for certain footwear manufacturing districts. These include Russia where, after a trend reversal in 2018, we are once again seeing reductions of over 15%, and then we have the uncertainties over the timing and mechanics of Brexit, with the danger of a “no deal” still looming large.

“To get through this difficult period we need to invest in ourselves and in our skills – states Siro Badon, Chair of Assocalzaturifici –. It is essential to train new professionals that are able to innovate Italian footwear manufacturing companies and fully espouse our tradition and the standards of excellence that characterise our production. Training, combined with targeted internationalisation strategies and important trade fair events like Micam, is the concrete response through which we can kick-start the process of relaunching Italian footwear and confirm our global leadership. The sector is crucial for our economy and can be a driver for Italian industry as a whole”.

The evolution of foreign sales, that was positive overall and led to a significant consolidation in the trade surplus for the first 6 months of the year (+10.7%), actually conceals acute differences in company performances. Indeed, alongside outstanding results for many international luxury brands, which a large number of companies operate for as subcontractors (as demonstrated by the significant
increases in trade flows towards Switzerland – a traditional logistics and distribution hub for major brands – and France), there is also a fairly significant number of companies still struggling to get back on track and experience positive trends. There is no shortage of expanding markets (with double-figure increases in value for North America and the Far East), but these increases are often accompanied by reductions in volume (of almost -4% for the US and Canada; more limited decreases, -1.1%, for countries in the Far East, with Japan faring poorly).

Italian luxury label Moncler has launched a series of ‘House of Genius’ pop-ups in Milan, Paris and Tokyo, as part of its ongoing strategy to push the boundaries of innovative customer retail experience by merging “offline and online, unity and multiplicity”.

The temporary concept pop-ups will be open until the end of January 2020 and each city will feature a series of live events and creative sessions in store starring international headliners.

The stores will sell all Moncler Genius lines from the year, starting with exclusive pieces from the Moncler House of Genius, and then will add newly launched Moncler collections as they drop throughout the next couple of months.

Each of the Moncler House of Genius will also feature items specially developed products for the chosen city, selling limited-edition merchandise including apparel and tech accessories highlighted with a dedicated city crest.

The Moncler House of Genius falls under the artistic direction of Francesco Ragazzi, who has imagined the retail spaces as art galleries where artworks are continuously installed and updated. The idea is to create a “space that is shaped shapelessly, designed to provide an ever-changing, immersive experience with unlimited potential,” added the Italian brand. “They are spaces to meet thinkers, artists, designers and to connect with Moncler through a unique live programme.”