18th January.

Premium Tradeshow

After getting there, we quickly got out wristbands and headed through into the actual tradeshow. It was full of stores, rails with samples of brands’ clothes and their look books and business cards. I was quick to see which brands caught my eye…

Now this is where I wish my mother had taught me Danish. My Danish background obviously drew me towards the Scandinavian designs, Black Lily especially. I spoke to the sales manager, who told me a little bit about the concept of their brand, Black Lily. The black versus the colourful, but the possibility to be both: Now I am a colourful person but some of the black skirts, tops and hand bags in suede, leather and sheer fabrics were so chic. She also explained that they mainly retail in Denmark but only have a couple of selling points in the UK, I think the UK retail market would love an All Saints style brand with a couple of colours to freshen it all up a bit! One of the photos was styled with a colourful leather neckpiece; unfortunately not one of the brands own!!

Even more unfortunately, I wasn’t allowed to take pictures inside the tradeshow, so I will rely on scanned in images from look books etc.

There were also quite a few jewelry brands that caught my attention, using quite raw materials, copper, other metals and leather; they created a really edgy look. The first one, I asked who the designer was etc., unfortunately there was a slight language barrier and we didn’t really understand each other! The other one was also Scandinavian? But part of what looked like a bigger brand with the jewelry having its own stand.

I also found a really cool t-shirt company, and with a baggy, oversized tee being all the rage at the moment, I think any buyers looking for a different brand for the boutique would make a really good choice by teaming up with ….? They look for artists to design the prints, some of them well known artists, other street artists. This brand has also made collaborations with several charities, making their tees even more of a worthwhile purchase! I’ll keep my eye out for .. if they hit nay boutiques in UK.

We got absolutely masses of free magazines in Premium and I would love to be able to take it all home, but I soon realised that due to an Easy Jet weight allowance that, that was not going to happen! I’ve torn pages out that I think look good and/or are interesting and inspiring.