Few industries are as fascinating as fashion with its constantly changing kaleidoscope of colours, shapes and styles. Fashion Access, in Hong Kong from April 6-8 at the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre, remains a premier industry event to open up new and exciting possibilities for its trade visitors. The coming edition will offer boutique buyers an ever-renewing source of fashion from all over the world through the Fashion Avenue.
Fashion Avenue, located in the Convention Foyer, is an innovative development at Fashion Access that provides a fitting home for design-driven companies who offer high-quality fashion goods and who can accommodate the low-volume orders of individual boutiques and small fashion chains. It will house a brilliant array of designer collections and branded goods including handbags, travelware, footwear and fashion accessories.
Trends Lounge, a central display of products illustrating the trends for autumn/winter 2005-06, will also be located in the Convention Foyer. It is a creation of China-based Spanish designer Ricardo Pareno, providing designers, manufacturers and buyers directions for the coming season with its shapes, styles, colours and textures all clearly and beautifully illustrated by actual fashion products.
In response to the need for a serene and well-appointed business discussion area, Fashion Means Business is now a feature of Fashion Access. Located in the Convention Foyer, it is intended to be a place for designers and manufacturers to meet and exchange information.
Also new at Fashion Access is a more streamlined entry procedure. Fashion Access buyers need not register at the same counters as buyers visiting the other major, concurrent show of APLF – Materials, Manufacturing & Technology. They may use the dedicated escalators leading to the Convention Foyer, where they may register for Fashion Access.
For the coming Fashion Access, 900 exibiting companies from 30 countries and regions have confirmed their participation. The number of first-time exhibitors has now grown to 50 with three new participating countries: Belgium, Columbia and Iceland. These exhibitors represent a new dimension of product variety for the many trade buyers who visit Fashion Access regularly. The new exhibiting companies hail from seven countries and regions: the Chinese mainland, Colombia, Hong Kong, Korea, Pakistan, the Philippines and Taiwan.
The Best of APLF Awards is now well-accepted as a prestigious industry accolade. A board of judges will short-list products for consideration on the opening day of Fashion Access. The board is composed of international fashion/industrial designers, merchandisers, style gurus and export promotion experts as well as members of the fashion and design media. They will base their choice on design quality, workmanship, materials usage, degree of innovation, functionality, environment friendliness and marketability. Co-located with Fashion Access will be the APLF Materials, Manufacturing and Technology fair, which will be held from April 6-9.