The 20-year-anniversary edition of Premium Exhibition just ended. Celebrated was this edition with monsters walking the show handing out mini-cupcakes and small sparkling wine bottles; with popcorn and an oversized balloon showing a 20 at the entrance. That, and a birthday dinner on the evening of the second day of the show.
But amongst all these attempts to celebrate the one important question that is being posed: how was the show?
Premium has always been known for a show where one could initially find selected, creative designers – some ‘truffle’ brands and then grew into a mix of great designer labels and commercial premium brands in a sophisticated setting. Since the summer 2022 Premium takes place at Messe Berlin, a classic trade show event hall, as the funky old location ‘Gleisdreieck’ was no longer available. Some mention this fact, however, as long as the brand mix and the visitors are right, the location, of course, is secondary as it is still easily reachable from anywhere in Berlin. The summer 2022 show impressed with its size over multiple halls and showed a mix of both designers, commercial and premium as well as not-so-premium brands. The lack of obvious curation was big feedback from visitors and that has been taken aboard for this much smaller edition of Premium
The Premium part consisted of two and a half halls of brands and one hall of SEEK. SEEK has been well curated with the brand mix one would expect for a streetwear trade show. Brands like Wrangler, LEE, Levi’s Footwear, Ben Sherman, Pyrenex, Copenhagen Studios, etc kept their space, while other brands like Puma and Drykorn had moved on. First-time attendees had a successful show with a lot of new buyer contacts.
The Premium part had one hall (Hall 1) filled with commercial headliners such as Gerry Weber, Herrlicher, Milestone, Olymp, Lloyd, and Fynch Hatton, and the other one-a-half halls (Hall 2 and 4) with a mix of brands reminiscent of the Premium industry knows. Big parts of Halls 2 and 4 were reserved for Agency Klauser and Ben&, fantastic German fashion showrooms which offer a good brand selection as well as with ‘Ukrainian Fashion Week’, which showed a range of small highly creative designers under the supervision of Sashka Project, which wants to introduce Ukrainian designers to the fashion world. These players displayed creative brands and talent. Some stand-out labels other than that were Stockholm-based denim label NEUW and Stuttgart-based tailored streetwear concept SPSR, which organized an impromptu Retailtainment music session, tattoos and live-artists at the show; Chinese premium fashion company JNBY, Dutch womenswear brand POM Amsterdam, new footwear concept Flufie alongside Marella, Ted Baker or Oilily. Of course, some finds can be made at this show, but it is a far stretch from the Premium, we once knew.
In terms of attendance, footfall was good until midday for the first two days of the show. Towards the afternoons it got slower and as SEEK was only to be reached via a shuttle or a longer walk, visitors were spread out. Premium confirmed to WeAr that more than 3.000 buyers had registered to attend the show. Relevant German buyers from the head of Breuninger to Engelhorn, a team from P&C Group, the KaDeWe Group as well as a large team from TJX (The German Group behind TK Maxx) were spotted, alongside a few international buyers, such as Galeries Lafayette, some Polish, Serbian and Dutch buyers. The majority of exhibitors mentioned they mainly had German customers at their stand.
Compared to Pitti Uomo, which happened a week prior, two things were noticeable: the number of international guests and brands at Pitti was higher. There was also a general awareness in the public in Florence that the show took place and international premium buyer- and press attendance was a given. It didn’t feel the same in Berlin, however the fact that good German buyers attended, some international ones and a range of brands exhibited, still meeting buyers and making business contacts, underlines the importance of the German market and the need for a meet-and-greet event.
It looks like showrooms replace more and more exciting fairs. Until someone comes up with an exciting new concept, which will involve big of investment, vision, and passion we do not foresee much change in this erosion of events, which once have been the cornerstone of the industry.
There is always hope for a better summer edition until then – let them eat cake.
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