Scene from The Brandery, January, 2010 show in Barcelona.

The Brandery -The Barcelona Urban Fashion Trade Show
If there was a hole when Bread & Butter left Barcelona a couple of years ago, The Brandery, now approaching it’s 3rd edition June 28-30, has done a fine job filling the gap. Positioned as an urban and streetwear show (not to be confused with the USA version of “urban” but more along the lines of metropolitan), the last Brandery at the Fira de Barcelona featured some 166 brands in street, denim, and upper urbanwear categories with 14, 500 in attendance.

Hosted by Fira de Barcelona and located in the Montjuic Exhibition Center of the area, the show continues to attract a mostly European market, predominately Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Portugal, and the UK. They hope to now push the boundaries and bring in more USA brands and attendees for their June show.

The show, which features brands ranging from North Sail, Bjorn Borg, Custo Barcelona of course, Ossa, and 55 DSL among many others, features a theme each time, somewhat like Bread & Butter, and includes interactive events throughout the city of Barcelona.

This next show features the theme Love Revolution. “Brand value,” says Pere Camprub?, Fira de Barcelona’s director of Expansion and of The Brandery, “derives not only from its quality, but also what the firm symbolizes and evokes in the mind of the buyer. The significance of the garment transcends the material aspect and enters into the dimension of the emotional. In the “Love Revolution” campaign, we wish to place special emphasis on passion, emotion and creativity, more than rationality, which is a necessary but insufficient part, above all in the case of fashion.”

The areas include The Fira, which features all of the exhibiting brands, The Brandtow with bars, lounges, and restaurants, The Laundry featuring new product launches, conferences, and networking, and The City, featuring fashion-related activities including those hosted around the city.

Within the Fira are separated themes for corresponding brands such as The Cathedral dedicated to signature designers; The Loft for high-end, edgy collections; The Warehouse featuring denim; and The Stadium for sport and streetwear, action sports, and performance fashion. www.thebrandery.com.


Bread & Butter’s New Sport and Street Concepts: The Boarding House and B&B Playground

Not to be outdone by other shows tapping into the passion and crossover connections of street, sport, music, and outside art, B&B has picked up the pace for one of it’s hottest sections, Sport and Street. Brands in this area range from LaCoste to Onitsuka Tiger, Nike Sportswear, Penfield, WeSC, New Balance, C1RCA, Airwalk, Rocksmith, DURKL, STAPLE, and Akomplice.

At its upcoming show in Berlin at the Berlin-Tempelhof July 7-9, 2010, this section will also feature:

B&B Boarding House (BBBH)
The B&B Boarding House is the logical continuation of the B&B 1st floor, which was introduced at the last B&B. The platform will be extended this summer in terms of space, yet more intimate in terms of content: a platform lodging carefully selected, smaller and individualistic labels and young designers with a distinctive affinity for art and a firm relation to the Sport & Street culture.

Joey Elgersma, product manager Sport & Street: “For me, the BBBH is a place where we motivate brands and artists but also exhibitors and visitors. We want our selected partners to present their products in a unique, creative and special way without any boundaries. Because they are the reason why we are different.”

B&B Playground (BBPG)
The successful concept of the B&B Fleamarket from the last seasons was extended conceptually, the B&B Playground is the next step: in front of the Sport & Street hangar, brands will build up special presentations according to their philosophy and background. An interactive area which welcomes everyone to socialize and have fun. Brands such as Puma, Le Coq Sportif and 55DSL will participate with special presentations at the B&B Playground, a sunny area with a pool, a basketball court, a rough skateboarding course on the airfield, a big BBQ, DJs and live music.

Joey Elgersma: “Good food, good music and good friends on beautiful summer days, see people skate, play some basketball and do good business %u2013 happy days.”

The traditional B&B fleamarket will be integrated in the B&B Playground, and visitors can buy limited items or rarities from previous collections at the booths of international retail stores such as Firmament, Wood Wood, Overkill and Solebox.

Karl-Heinz M?ller, managing director BREAD & BUTTER GmbH: “Terms such as community, respect and authenticity are especially distinct in the Sport & Street segment, and we believe in providing the protagonists of this community with an intimate and personal platform. With the B&B Boarding House and the B&B Playground we clearly go one step ahead and involve all aspects that serve as a basis of inspiration for the Sport & Street community. Both are adequate business platforms for a segment based on many different cultural inspirations.”

This will coincide with the launch of the especially designed website www.breadandbutter.com/sportandstreet.


Agenda NYC and Winter Shows

Meanwhile Agenda, the trade show that has challenged many other larger, more established shows with unique line-up of brands, concepts, and attendees, continues to expand, this time with the addition of a New York City show, July 19-20 (same time a Project, Capsule, ENK, and NYC Men’s Market week) at 190 Mercer St. in SoHo.

“No matter how well the West Coast shows performed,” said Aaron Levant, founder of Agenda, “we saw that many of our exhibitors were still heading to NYC for the market week, even though they did not have a show that was catering to their needs. With this in mind we decided it was time to bring our model to New York.”

According to Levant, the NYC show will be smaller with about 70 brands than the show in Huntington Beach to be held August 4-5, but it will include some core brands such as The Hundreds and LRG, plus some new ones from the East coast.

However the real head-turner is the announcement of Agenda’s Winter show, to debut in January 2011. While SIA touted the success of their first show in Denver after moving from Vegas for years, it was pretty obvious from those who attended that the move left a big whole for West Coast retailers and brands who weren’t about to travel further than Vegas.

According to Levant, he plans to have the Winter show inside his Agenda show, similar to The Berrics in his summer shows, featuring about 40 winter brands. In many ways this sounds like old-school ASR when a high volume of snowboarding brands lined-up right along side street apparel brands (and ASR still does have some winter brands showcasing but not at the volume of the early %u201890s).

In other trade show news, (capsule) has added a new women’s show in Paris called Femme Paris to be held October 1-3, and new locations for (capsule) Paris at 66 rue Turenne, 75003 with the Homme show June 25-27. (capsule) New York will take place at Center 548 West 22nd St., with the Men’s show July 19-20, 2010, and Women’s show September 21-22, 2010.

Rendez-Vous, the trade show created by the collective Surface to Air, will showcase their Homme show in Paris, June 25-26, and NYC show September 20-22, and Femme show October 1-4.

Stay tuned for more trade show news. Please contact us for additonal information on various trade show features.