Pure London receives good attendance from overseas countries

12 Mar '09

5 min read

Pure London proved to be a huge success this February closing its doors with a 5.85% rise in visitor numbers, bucking the trend in the current economical climate and reflecting an optimistic light on the industry. In addition to an excellent attendance, exhibitors confirmed that they were seeing quality buyers who were writing strong orders at the show.

Morten Roed Simonsen, export manager at Danish brand B.Young, which returned to the show after three seasons, said “There has been a big change in the type of retailers attending trade fairs. In the past there were 50% browsers and 50% of visitors were seriously looking for new brands. Now I would say about 90% of the people here are here to be active and just 10% are browsers for trends, this shift means there is potentially more business here. It is important to exhibit so your customers know you are a strong company that will be able to deliver orders in tough times.”

Anna Apostolo from Desigual also commented 'We have achieved a high quality of clients this season, opening a lot of new accounts, placing excellent orders, which is fantastic for us.'

Nikki Harris, distributor of Diego Reiga commented, 'This has been the best show I have exhibited at in 8 years. We have literally had hundreds of new customers. I am really really happy!'

UK attendance was up by 8.7%. Buyers from the UK confirmed they saw real value in visiting Pure London, as the largest show to date with over 900 brands exhibiting including the biggest offering of Accessories and Footwear in the UK; they were able to see established brands as well as view 312 new collections to this Pure London.

Janet Biggs of Swish Boutique in Marlow commented 'I have found some brilliant new brands that we are interested in placing orders with. There are some great ranges on offer this season. We are playing it safe in this current climate and are on the look out for good quality pieces which we have already found at the show.'

International attendance was slightly down, which is to be expected as people are reducing their travel budgets, but Pure London still received good attendance from overseas countries; Ireland, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Turkey as well as the USA and Japan.

Pure London was busy over the three days and the feedback from buyers was that during such tough market conditions it is more important than ever for them to visit exhibitions, to keep ahead of the market, gather trend information, research new products and place their orders with exhibitors all under one roof, proving it to be a very valuable and cost effective few days.

A high level of UK buyers attended including Fenwick, Harvey Nichols, Harrods, ASOS, Selfridges, Topshop, House of Fraser, John Lewis as well as key independent retailers such as Sunday Best, Flow, Psyche, Stone and Matches.

One of the new areas this season at Pure London was the menswear collections on offer in Spirit. Joe Szopa, Director of Jack & Jones commented, 'The show's been really positive. We've had loads of new leads and customers. The challenge is finding new independents and Pure is a brilliant platform to engage with this type of customer. We will definitely come back in August.'

More Pure London News... More Fashion News - United Kingdom...