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Despite dwindling participants, İstanbul Fashion Fair selective
“In the past there were three to four halls for the fair,” said Neslihan Köse, an international media planning executive for CNR Holding, told Today's Zaman. “Now there is just one.” In the hall about 220 companies, 16 of which are foreign, are displaying their products.
The reduction is in part a result of the fair organizers wishing to separate the fashion design segments from the fashion production segments at different venues so as to, as project and show director Murat Özer told Today's Zaman, “bring more color” to the event. He described the fashion design venue as being “more about catwalks.” But in reality, the smaller size has almost everything to do with the effects of the crisis.
“The crisis undeniably affected the size of the fair,” said Köse. Köse, who works for CNR Holding, owner of Istanbul Trade Fairs, is involved in the organization of all kinds of fairs. She said the ready-wear fashion sector has been the worst hit. As evidence she noted the size of the furniture fair, which she said remained unchanged from last year, occupying eight halls.
Home textiles, which have also been badly affected by the ongoing economic crisis, experienced a much milder drop: Last year there were 11 halls reserved for home textiles and this year there were nine -- an 18 percent reduction.
Although the venues for the ready-wear sector have been divided, the high fashion area, held in Taşkışla is only 300 square meters in size -- not even a third of the size of one hall at the CNR Expo.
Nonetheless, the fair remains the most important fair for the Turkish ready-wear sector, which itself is one of the largest exporters in the world. And despite the dwindling producers showing up at the fair this year, visitors to the fair have actually increased this year. Last year the fair attracted about 5,500 visitors, while this year, 5,600 were expected.
“This is a great success given the decline in the number of companies, yet the increase in the number of visitors.” Özer said. “This shows how successful we were last year.”
Part of the reason for the increase in the number of visitors, said Abhishek Bhartia, a salesman for indiamart.com, a government organization whose task is to promote Indian products abroad, was likely the geographical importance of Turkey in the global supply chain. Although he explained that Indian products were cheaper, the economic crisis made it so that buyers for companies in Europe could not risk buying the large quantities required by Indian manufacturers, and the quantity levels would make the considerably higher freight costs and shipping times worthwhile. “Turkey,” he said, “could supply smaller quantities with considerably less freight charges.” Indeed, Özer said the profile of the visitors fit this profile: mainly small and medium-sized buyers.
And in many ways, the fair's limited number of participants can be seen as a testament to the organizers commitment to the reputation of the fair. “Although the crisis has affected us badly, we still refused to take everyone who applied,” Özer said, adding that they didn't want to be “less selective in the presenters in order to fill the hall.” Explaining that today was a buyer's market, he said buyers have become very selective in where they visit given the competition since they do not want to waste time. “We selected the applicants by listening to the advice of various textile associations that we work with,” he said.
Many large and established companies, he said, had cut their advertising and market budgets until 2010 and therefore were not coming. Many newer and smaller companies, on the other hand, were looking to expand their marketing budgets. Booths at the sale were renting for 180 euros per square meter.
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