Happy Lunar New Year to all!

恭 喜 發 財 !
As the Chinese wish their loved ones, friends and family great prosperity in the new year, they gift red packets filled with lucky money. 
Photo © Lucia Carpio 2018

The Lunar New Year Holiday presents A Huge Opportunity For the Chinese to practice a key Tradition with a twist, or two.

One key tradition of the Lunar New Year is for elders and married people to give their loved ones, juniors and children little red envelopes – known as “Lai See” in Cantonese or “Hung Bao” in Mandarin - filled with lucky money inside. This is to symbolise that one has plenty of good blessings and pleasantries to pass on.  This is a custom naturally much welcome by the younger generation.

According to PCA Predict a market leading provider of cloud-based address management services, this Lunar New Year tradition has changed rapidly in recent years thanks to e-commerce.

Chris Boaz, ‎Head of Marketing of PCA Predict, (a GBG company) said many people have begun gifting this tradition online, with 46 billion red envelopes exchanged digitally last year.

“This follows a wider trend of nearly three-quarter (73%) of Chinese consumers shopping online for Chinese New Year.   There is a huge opportunity for UK retailers to capitalise on the Chinese ecommerce market around New year, especially as it is estimated more than a fifth (23%) of consumers in China will make at least one cross-border purchase via the internet in the next year.”

“While Chinese New Year can’t compete with the size and scope of Singles’ Day in terms of ecommerce opportunity for international brands, it is becoming an increasingly important date for retailers outside of China.”

Meanwhile the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong has reported that two Shanghai-based internet entrepreneurs believe millennials want more than just lucky money in red envelopes or "Hung Bao".

The two ladies, Teresa Wu and Amber Chen have tapped into a segment of shoppers who want more creative ideas when it comes to gifting during the new year.  They founded BeGifted, an ecommerce platform devoted to helping their client find the perfect gift for that special someone.

With their background in luxury media and PR industry for 13 years, the two "are trying to shed the negative association" with bribery and lavish gift-giving, "with a product selection that is more about sentiment than extravagance."

According to the report, most of the items cost 100 to 2,000 yuan (£10 - £200) , and many of their customers are in their 20s and 30s.

February 13 - 15 2018: Premiere Vision Paris sets the course for a new look and innovations

All professionals involved in the creating of fabrics and the development of textiles, for the fashion, accessories, leather and interior industries need to always keep their fingers on the pulse of innovation if they are to make progress in their business, and this makes the Première Vision Paris international trade fair a must-visit event each season where the world's top movers and shakers meet, connect, network and interact.

Première Vision Paris September 2017 event.

Première Vision Paris group of trade fairs takes place February 13 – 15 2018 at Villepinte, north Paris, to showcase the latest products from 1,725 exhibitors (an increase of 1.6% compared to the February 2017 show) from around the world, representing 50 countries across six dedicated sectors, from textiles to leather, fabric designs to yarns, accessories to finished garment manufacturing.

 Première Vision Paris February 2017 event.

Focusing on Spring/Summer 2019 collections and trends, two of the key areas of the February 2018 session are being given a face-lift, featuring a new stand design created by French designer Ora  Ïto  who presents an exclusive stand and furniture concept, putting a special emphasis on highlighting the creativity of exhibitors at two sectors: Première Vision Fabrics and Première Vision Yarns, offering new lighting and novel additions, such as video screens built into the stand walls.

“I worked to create a virtuous and homogeneous microcosm, a fresh, reinvented showcase where each element is eco-friendly and thought-out all along the manufacturing process,” explains Ora Ïto. 

This creation brings together all in one place the strong values of Première Vision:  aesthetic research, access to new technologies and environmental awareness.

The show’s new look and layout is also accompanied by changes in the organization of the fashion information areas and forums, which are indispensable tools for brands and buyers looking for inspiration and exhibitors’ latest products.

There are also two market focus areas:   TECH FOCUS dedicated to the sports, performance and functional-wear sector, and JEWEL FOCUS to present a selection of components for the fashion jewellery market.

Displays at Wearable Lab, Première Vision Paris February 2017 event.

Also notable is the expansion of the Wearable Lab covering 800 sq metres dedicated to Fashion Tech, with a strengthened space for discoveries, meetings and discussion.

Maison d'Exceptions at Première Vision Paris, February 2017 

And the Bag & Shoe Manufacturing is another key focus area in the Leather segment, while the scope of Maison d’Exceptions for exceptional and artistic hand-craftsmanship has been expanded.  It presents a diverse international showcase of unique techniques for designers and buyers from luxury and high-end fashion brands on the hunt for exclusives.

Meanwhile the Première Vision Marketplace is designed to keep step with the profound changes in an industry seeking accelerated product renewal and a shorter time-to-market.   As a B-to-B e-commerce site, an editorial platform and an industry service provider, the Première Vision Marketplace will be inaugurated in the second semester of 2018,  thanks to a dedicated team within the Group’s new subsidiary, Première Vision Digital.

More details can be seen on the website: www.premierevision.com
Photos © Lucia Carpio 2017.

Premiere Vision Paris scales up The Wearable Lab pavilion this February

Come February 13 - 15 2018 the Premiere Vision Paris group of trade fairs for the global textile and fashion industry will take place at the Parc d’Expositions in Villepinte, and play host to international professionals eager to showcase their latest top products and to exchange ideas on the future of the fashion, materials and accessories industry.

Building on its mission to decode future trends, Première Vision (PV) organisers will once again offer as one of the latest inspirations, the unique Wearable Lab: a space at the heart of the show designed to showcase the Fashion Tech players whose focus are on technological innovation.

In 2018, PV acknowledges technology will continue its growth in the fashion industry, thus the Wearable Lab is expanding to become a 900m² village. Its goal is to present an international selection of materials, products and services to serve as sources of experimentation for the fashion industry.

Expected to present itself as a hotbed of inspiration, this dedicated space, located near the Tech sector of Première Vision Fabrics in Hall 6, will present a 360° offer of technologies, materials, meetings and discoveries in 4 areas.

To read more about Premiere Vision Paris, click here.

Texworld group of trade fairs in Paris February 11 - 14 2018

Due to open on February 11 2018 in Paris at Le Bourget is the joint fairs of Apparel Sourcing, Avantex, Shawls&Scarves, Texworld Denim and Texworld Paris.

Organisers at Messe Frankfurt France have scheduled a busy programme of catwalk shows as well as informative conferences and seminars for attendants to gain insights into various sectors of the textile and garment industry which will be co-hosted by a number of top officials from different participating countries and exhibitors.

Subjects being covered include an Overview of the European and worldwide foreign trade in 2017; the good practises in apparel sourcing; Materials and components, Transparencies and new materials, the strengths and constraints of European manufacturers and speakers will include experts and professionals from Germany and Austria.

For full story, click HERE.

Photo from the 2017 September Texworld events.

Special edition of Samsung Galaxy phone help Olympians Capture the Excitement of the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018

If anyone who can do an electronically-infused, all inspiring opening ceremony, the Koreans can do it better. 

(Photo by Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)
A special edition of the Galaxy Note8, the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Games Limited Edition features a shiny white back glass to celebrate the winter theme, and gold Olympic Rings - inspired by the Olympic Torch – an expression of the Olympic Movement with the union of five continents and unity worldwide

As Olympians from close to 100 nations gathered in PyeongChang, Korea this week for the start of the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018. Athletes representing their respective countries enjoyed capturing and sharing the moments of the unique Olympic Games experience during the Opening Ceremony with the official Olympic Games phone, the Samsung PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Games Limited Edition. 

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Worldwide Olympic Partner with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in the Wireless Communications Equipment and Computing Equipment category, gifted  4,000 devices to all PyeongChang 2018 Olympians, helping them to enhance their experiences in the Games and connect more easily with family and friends around the world. 

Sofa - bed: Tom Dixon X Ikea

All those fashion shows to review, we need a lie down.  Or at least somewhere to sit.

The answer could come in the form of the DELAKTIG - the result of a collaboration between British enfant terrible designer Tom Dixon and the world’s biggest furniture company Ikea.

Described as a durable, transformable platform for living – DELAKTIG was launched in Milan a couple of weeks’ ago.  It is a sofa that also functions as a bed.  

According to Tom Dixon, the bed is the most important furniture we need in our life.  As many of us now work from home, we can certainly relate to that.  More often than ever, we bring our work into our bed with us, sitting up at odd hours to pour through our emails and social media platforms using our electronic devices to communicate with colleagues, clients, loved ones, friends, contacts in different parts of the world.

Tom Dixon has come up with the concept of making the bed work harder for us as to him it is the only indispensable piece of furniture, the primary unit of home furnishing.

Together with IKEA, Tom decided to create a super-durable aluminium frame that could be constantly updated or upgraded as your life and needs evolve.   At its most basic, DELAKTIG is a single bed - rapidly transformable into a chaise lounge or a three seat sofa by adding additional components.

Contributing to a global community of IKEA hackers that already edit and modify IKEA designs for every-day life, Tom and IKEA began work with the world’s most innovative art schools to see if DELAKTIG, rather than being a complete finished piece of furniture, could be the start of something much bigger - a kind of ecosystem with unlimited possibilities. The results were diverse and inspiring.

In response, Tom Dixon has created heavy-weight task lamps, coffee tables and magazine racks that can be clamped, slotted or bolted on at will, to mutate the sofa into a work or entertainment space. Made of substantial and durable aluminium plate the hacks are robust enough to last a lifetime.

Tom Dixon also collaborated with Bemz who specialize in soft hacks to produce three luxe covers that elevate the IKEA frame into a luxury unit – from Shower-proof stripes to an Icelandic sheepskin mono-cover known as ‘The Beast’.

So, this is the plan - you can go to IKEA and you can buy yourself a bed. If you want, you can add components to make it into a sofa. Once you’ve got this bed sofa you can add on Tom's hacks, other people’s hacks, or you can hack it yourself.    Presently, the hacks are available from tomdixon.net in the UK and Europe only.

Paris Haute Couture Fashion S-S 18: the Jean Paul Gaultier twist

Jean Paul Gaultier does haute couture with a twist: exploiting bold monochrome and psychedelia.  The SS2018 collection has got the 1960’s vibe: Sci-fi A-Go-Go style. 

Models gyrate down the catwalk enveloped in swirling silhouettes and asymmetric cuts. Note the long groovy fringes, fun missed-matched tights and coordinating shoes and boots, geometric earrings and exaggerated bangles; macrame knots and basket weaves; twisted panels creating a 3-D effects. 

Then M. Gaultier goes over-drive with head-to-toe electrifying colours. 

Feast your eyes also on the daring circular motifs of vibrant colours. An execution of avant-garde surrealism.

Credits: beautypress.com

Images: P. Stable