Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Project & Magic Winter 2011 Trend Recap

Project Las Vegas, Winter 2011, was a great show for PAi! Featuring brands A-Kurtz, True Religion and Ben Sherman, our booth had great constant traffic.  Our sales team and designers should be proud! Each season we attend Project, we not only showcase brands, but we also look for new and emerging key trends. 

PAi's Design Director, Lori Glaser, anaylized the show for new design themes, colors and trends:

The overall theme of this show was utilitarian.  The key pieces had a usefulness, practical or
functional style.  The use of higher end fabrics featuring performance aspects was promenient.

Each brand, no matter what their original brand motto was, is now defining their clothing
with a unique fusion of function and style.  This is also working vice versa, if a brand started
out pure function they are balancing their mix with style.

This utilitarian style naturally crosses over into the shoe and leather goods market... the work boot is now a
very trendy one...   Several booths had a great display of burnished leathers that make
the work boot a must have.  Several participants, men and some women alike, donned the work boot
look.  

Flirty and Functional is the theme behind most of the ladies brands. Masculine features with
ruffles or a military jacket with short skirts or jean shorts, boots all over the place.  Thigh
high boots, work boots, spiked heel boots and flat soled comfy ones.  A take on the flight suit
is also coming back.  several booth and participants displayed/ wore jumpsuits ... cropped, long
skinny legged, shorts ... sexy and military driven.

Colors for the season are obviously workwear inspired but with a pop in the spiced family.
chili powder - 1805c,  paprika - 159c and mustard - 124c.

Not everything had the utilitarian theme...  there was as much of a display in the vintage
arena.  Many booths displayed a graphic oriented vintage feel. Even our licensor
Ben Sherman has taken a dip in the vintage arena... their new booth was the talk of the show -
using armoires as the booth front.  Very attractive display!!

Of course, there were all kinds of booths that had the True religion feel as well.  High end
jeans, awesome graphics and the use of the bean stitch throughout.

Needless to say, our booth fit right in with the pulse of the show!!!  The new size of our booth
and the products displayed, shows that PAi knows its stuff!!!  A-Kurtz stays true to its
motto and fit right in the utilitarian realm!!!  Ben Sherman and True Religion again brought
tons of customers and potential licensors to our booth!!!  It was great show for PAi, the
products we displayed were dead on... so proud of our designers and the salesmen that show with
such enthusiasm!!!