Première Vision Paris to highlight close association between sport and fashion this September

PREMIÈRE VISION PARIS: SPORT GAINS GROUND 

AT PREMIÈRE VISION PARIS:  A FIRST- EVER SPORT & TECH SECTOR, INFORMATIVE FORUM, AND EXCLUSIVE PROGRAMME!  

"From mass market to luxury houses, everyone needs sports,"
says Pascal Monfort, fashion consultant of sport and
lifestyle founder of Trends Marketing REC agency.
Photo taken at Premiere Vision Paris 2017.
Photo © Lucia Carpio  

The association between sport and fashion has never been closer.  Today thanks to new technology and innovation, functional performance is integrated into fashion and textiles development.

Thus in the next edition of the fashion and textiles fair Première Vision Paris, due to take place 19 – 21 September at Villepinte, Paris, the show will dedicate new spaces to highlight sport and technical innovations on offer from exhibitors, to assist ready-to-wear brands looking for innovative products to develop their high-performance fashion pieces.

Fashion and sports are closely associated.
Photo from Premiere Vision Paris 2017.
Photo © Lucia Carpio 

The new spaces will include a dedicated fashion decoding system, and a specific conference programme.

Trade visitors and industry professionals should look out for:-
• A SPORT & TECH sector in the heart of Hall 6 at Première Vision Fabrics.
• A SPORT & TECH trail available on the show's mobile app available to download
• A SPORT & TECH forum (formerly the Tech Focus Forum).
• A dedicated program of conferences in the SPORT & TECH forum, moderated by Pascal Monfort, founder and director of the Trends Marketing REC agency.

Monsieur Monfort, a notable fashion consultant specializing in sport & lifestyle, acknowledges that the communion between sport and fashion has reached its maturity and all areas are affected.

"From mass market to luxury houses, everyone needs sports, and they take real risks if they try and give it up. Refusing to integrate sneakers into a collection today is almost dangerous.  You can also see that a sports spirit is mixed in with fashion too," he said in an interview with Première Vision Paris.

"Yes, and the entire sports world has been summoned. Athletes walked straight into the fashion universe. They sit in the front row of the runway shows. Their reach is immense and covers all parts of the world, far more than celebrities.

"In addition, sporting events also dictate fashion calendars with, for example, the creation of capsule collections for soccer’s World Cup or the America’s Cup.  This has transformed the needs of brands. 

Premiere Vision Paris 2017.  Photo © Lucia Carpio 

M. Monfort continues: "The new generation of artistic directors in major houses like to work with technical fabrics and materials that previously caused no excitement for people outside of the sports world. We used to want comfortable materials. Now they also have to be efficient and ultra-technical."

The complete interview can be found on the Première Vision website and in the Cloud of Fashion Newspaper #3.

UK Consumer Spending for attending live sport to beat Olympic record by 2016

What a summer it’s already been for sports fans in the UK, reaching the ultimate climax this weekend with Wimbledon women’s and men’s final matches, Formula I Grand Prix in Silverstone and the Grand Depart of the Tour de France kicking off in Yorkshire for its first three-day cycling race from Leeds to London before crossing the channel to France.

Petra Kvitova (right) of Czech Republic is 2014 Wimbledon Women's Singles Champion, beating Canada's Euginie Bouchard in a stunning victory of 6-3 6-0 to win her second Wimbledon title.
This year, Wimbledon officials enforced its all-white rule on players' apparel by banning coloured undergarments.

According to new market research by Mintel, Britain’s support for live sport is growing, although Britain’s sports fans may be hanging their heads after the defeats in the World Cup, Wimbledon and the Cricket’s Test Series against Sri Lanka this summer.

With the culmination of the World Cup, the Tour de France and Wimbledon, this weekend should be sports heaven for the UK’s sports fans with over half of Brits (55%) having watched live football matches and 42% live tennis matches via any method in the past year.   Indeed, with more than a third (35%) of Brits classified as current cyclists, the Tour de France too should receive high levels of spectatorship.  In addition, it seems Brits are beginning to be bowled over by cricket. Whilst one in five (21%) Brits said they watched a live cricket match via any method in 2013, this figure rose to almost a quarter (24%) in 2014.

For the first time since the peak of the London Olympics in 2011, consumer expenditure on attending live sport is rising, with sales forecast to reach £1.4 billion in 2014, an impressive 7% ahead of 2013 and set to reach £1.5 billion by 2016, topping the Olympic ticket sales of 2012.

Paul Davies, Senior Leisure and Technology Analyst at Mintel, said:"The London Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012 took the value of the spectator sports market to a level never seen before, as spectators made every effort to attend the first Olympic Games held in the UK since 1948. A year later, a seat on Centre Court to witness Andy Murray’s first Wimbledon title proved to be one of the ‘golden tickets’ to have in 2013, alongside England’s home series victory in the Ashes test series against Australia." Paul said."In recent years, the pull of potentially witnessing British success has boosted sports such as tennis and cricket, something which is likely to drive crowds to the Commonwealth Games in 2014, the Rugby World Cup in 2015 and the return of the home Ashes test series the same year. As a result, the value of the spectator sports market is now expected to return to and even exceed the level seen in 2011 (when the majority of Olympic tickets were sold)." Paul added.

It seems that for Brits, watching sport live at the game is enjoyed for the atmosphere of the crowd – with a third (31%) of event spectators saying it is generally worth paying to attend live sport events purely for the atmosphere.

As to where in the country are the sports fans gathering?  It seems that London holds the most sports fans with nine in 10 (90%) Londoners watching live sport in the past year.Yorkshire, Humberside are second with four in five (82%), and the North and Scotland at 78%. The smallest number of enthusiasts however, are in the South East and East Anglia where three in four (75%) have enjoyed live sport in the past year, the South East and East Anglia as well as East and West Midlands stand at 76%.