Le Cuir A Paris - a promising event

This edition of Le Cuir A Paris was another success and exhibiting companies have welcomed the establishment of closer links between textiles and accessories exhibitions. Almost 250 exhibitors from 20 countries presented their best products and innovations in finished and semi-finished leathers, exotic and special skins, furs, textiles and components. Around 43 new companies participated in this autumn's event, mainly from Italy (including Concerias Zonta, Romana, di Urgnano and Consorzio D & Co); Spain (with Tecnopiel, among others); France (J M Marthens showed their new collection in stretch leather); Germany; England; the United States (Pan American Leathers presented their crocodile skin collection); and Finland (with Bröderna Brandt Lâderfabrik AB in particular, a company specialising in elk and deerskin). Each Premiere Vision Pluriel event receives more than 50,000 visitors/buyers/designers, of whom 80% come from all over the world. To make it easier for buyers and designers to visit the exhibition, Le Cuir A Paris, held in the north wing of Hall 5, allowed all holders of Premiere Vision Pluriel passes free access to the exhibition from inside Hall 5. Those wishing to visit the Le Cuir A Paris exhibition only were allowed free access through the north entrance to Hall 5 (accessible via a shuttle at the subway exit). Events: On Thursday, September 22 at 11.00 in the VIP room, a press conference was held that included a presentation of the trends and fabrics for the season by the Bureau de Style Chaussure, Maroquinerie, Cuir the French design experts. For more information please visit [http://www.premierevision-pluriel.com] Exclusive leather trends During this edition of Le Cuir A Paris, the winter 2006/2007 trends were presented exclusively and in preview. Winter 2006/2007 is characterised by fascination with old things and the poetry of the past. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the Middle Ages are a rich source of inspiration. To illustrate these colours, the Trends Gallery proposed four fashion themes: * Great expectations (Charles Dickens): This theme takes its inspiration from the late nineteenth century and the start of the industrial era. Both literary and cinematographic, it borrows from Charles Dickens and the London of his time, a grey-blue mood tinged with fictionalised melancholic poverty; and from Charlie Chaplin and Gustave Eiffel the fascination with the beginnings of mechanisation and gentle mockery of it. * Crazy dolls: A desire for a pretty-pretty, spick-and-span look balanced by a taste for strangeness has fostered baby doll mania. Characters with staring eyes loom up, enormous or tiny, straight out of Lewis Carroll and fairytale myths and legends. The ballerinas on the musical box and little lead soldiers wait patiently to be dressed by the designers' imagination. * Celtic attraction: Nomads from the north and Celtic barbarians roaming the arid steppes and Mongolian plains, wrapped in long wild furs. They ride over the flat heath, put up dolmens and standing stones, and wage war, protected by their ornate shields and metallic armour. * Splendeur baroque: Both Byzantine and medieval, steeped in art nouveau, caressed by Fortuny, Klimt and Hoffman, a sensual, flamboyant redhead, decked with precious jewels, embodies this rich, poisonous trend. Her nonchalant elegance dwells in the imagination of the outcast artists.