Six months is too short a time period to gauge trends. Yet, the world has been in much tumult in the gap between Denim PV Berlin and Denim PV Milan. Are there any changes in buying/sourcing trends that you have noticed in these six months? What are the driving forces/factors for these changes?
At Denim Première Vision, we explore the fashion world and share trends inputs with our exhibitors and visitors. That’s something we do continuously during the whole year through different tools, meetings and events. Although we can't have a product revolution every six months, considering the high level of exhibitors, we are able to catch and present new and interesting values, stories, and innovative ideas every season.
In the last months, we have seen a reallocation of production, especially for the luxury sector that is looking to reliable partners who are able to provide them with quality services and products with a high value of research with a fast approach.
Indeed, the economic situation in the US is affecting the productions of countries that are more exposed, while the EU has, for the moment, less impact. I'm saying ‘for the moment’, because the situation is fluid in a way that we have never seen before.
The energy crisis has wreaked havoc in Europe, and the textiles-fashion industry has been affected like everyone else, and in some countries more than others. How much has this impacted the denim industry? As far as this event is concerned, most brands and retailers would have made plans much before the energy issue had assumed crisis proportions. What is your appraisal of the situation?
It’s complicated because it is difficult to identify a unique business model for entire Europe. For example, the Italian ecosystem has a high level of flexibility due to the small and medium size of many companies that can react in a flexible way to the crisis. Some of them also started years ago to improve their energy consumption so that now the energy crisis is impacting (them) less.
There is also a big movement where—finally—the companies are starting to become bigger thanks to partnerships, mergers and acquisitions. It will allow the value chain to maintain flexibility while improving the capability to drive a global market. This is the value chain side that most of the time needs to satisfy the requirements of the brand.