Excellent results at Proposte

18 May '10

4 min read

The eighteenth edition of Proposte, the most important international trade fair for furnishing fabrics and curtains, came to a close on May 7th. Of its 103 exhibitors, all of whom were European, 53 were Italian and 50 hailed from other European countries. All 6553 professional visitors were invited by the General secretariat upon indication from exhibitors. Of them, 2698 (41%) were Italian and 3855 (59%) hailed from 70 foreign countries. The total number of professional visitors dropped slightly (2.5%) when compared with 2009. By adding the number of journalists and guests to the number of professional visitors, the total number of visitors in attendance reached the significant sum of 6995.

The top countries in terms of attendee origin were, in decreasing order, Germany, Great Britain, France, United States of America and Russia. Interestingly, there was an increase in American (+29%), Russian (+11%) and Saudi Arabian (+46%) visitors while the decrease in Greek and Portuguese attendees was to be expected.

The 11 desks set up for the textile trade press amongst the exhibitors hosted 20 publishing companies representing a total of 56 publications. These excellent results disproved pessimistic expectations arising from the ongoing financial crisis and showed that there continues to be great demand on the international market for the innovative and high-quality products on display at Proposte. A team of journalists and stylists surveyed the collections, which were shown at Proposte on a world premiere basis, throughout the fair's three-day duration.

The trends in furnishing textiles they distilled from their survey of these collections will soon be presented in the special issue Made in Europe Trends at Proposte 2010 and published its website.

The new Board of Directors
On May 7th, the Proposte Assembly elected its new Board of Directors for another three-year term: the new President Mauro Cavelli, who has already served as councillor, is from Mario Cavelli spa. Piercarlo Viganò from Viganò spa, who has presided over the last three editions of Proposte, is Vice President.

Michele Eger from Conjugi Eger srl and Marco Cazzaniga from Tessitura Pietro Cazzaniga spa have once again been appointed councillors. GianMarco Zamaroni from Fiorete spa will be replacing Giorgio Giardini, who is stepping down after nearly ten years in his position.

May 6 Press Conference - Following the February 25 roundtable entitled Do architects love fabrics?, we thought it would be constructive to organise a meeting with architects, journalists and exhibitors during Proposte to further discuss themes related to the field of furnishing textiles.

Proposte President Piercarlo Viganò extended a warm welcome to participants; Councillor Mauro Cavelli emphasised the importance of the manufacturing industry to every country's economy; and Head of the Consumer Goods Division at the Italian Institute for Foreign Trade Laura La Corte emphasised the Minister's commitment to support this industry.

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