By David Gill
NEW YORK–For vendors of upper-end textiles products, this summer’s New York International Gift Fair offers a chance to both pull in some business and increase their exposure.
It will also be the first Gift Fair held since the restructuring at GLM, the show’s owner and manager. Dorothy Belshaw, senior vice president and director of the Gift Fair, said the impact of the restructuring won’t be felt at the August show, but will be apparent at future gift fairs.
One of the major elements of the new structure is to have dedicated marketing teams for each GLM show. “It will be a vast improvement,” Belshaw said. “It will allow us to monitor attendance [at each show] and to launch initiatives to increase attendance.”
Belshaw said the outlook for the August Gift Fair is hopeful. “Exhibitors are anxious about the economy,” she said, “but there’s a feeling that retailers need inventory. The hope is for healthy buying activity for the fourth quarter, so exhibitors are definitely putting their best foot forward with new products.”
Many of the textiles exhibitors are situated in the At Home section in the Jacob K. Javits Center here, and the mood in this area is upbeat as well. For Blissliving, a high-end supplier of bedding, the At Home section has improved its performance at the show.
“We were originally in the Altman Building when we first exhibited at the show in January of 2007, but now we’re in At Home,” said Mareike Finck, public-relations and marketing coordinator for Blissliving. “At Home provides much better traffic, and you are close to other prestigious areas. Also, you’re close to the press area, which means more editors stop by.
Attention is also important to Marimekko, a top-of-the-bed products vendor. “I think our being [at the Gift Fair] has helped to bring more interest in Marimekko worldwide,” said Yossie Bitton, managing director of Marimekko North America. “I don’t judge the show from the orders we write there, but from the attention we get. In terms of brand awareness, the show is very positive for us.”
For DwellStudio, which exhibits in the Gift Fair’s Accent on Design section, writing orders is the crucial reason to exhibit at the show. “We do 10 percent of our annual sales at the Gift Fair,” said Christiane Lemieux, DwellStudio’s creative director. “It’s also a good source of concepts for retailers. They get ideas from the designs they see and discuss them with other vendors, and we find we get credit from this.”