As late summer put Paris in the heat again, Who’s Next opened its doors to the fashion industry from September 2nd to 4th for a particularly lively event. FashionUnited reports on the trade fair experiences.
At the entrance, ID cards and identities of visitors are checked several times by security guards. Not everyone gets into this “Temple of Wholesale”, as the organizers call the fair. However, once you’ve passed the barriers, the reception warms up. An American school bus is parked in front of the main gates to celebrate the start of school with music. It’s just 10 a.m. and the karaoke system is already delighting a group of young girls who are going full throttle to a current song. A few meters away, a DJ perches high in front of his turntables, opposite food trucks that will soon whet your appetite.
Through the doors you enter a tunnel made of crumpled paper, which with bumble gum perfumed and decorated with schoolyard-style doodles. The happy atmosphere of the “School Beginning” (or “Back to school”) theme manages to engage visitors while reflecting the current dynamic of the wholesale distribution channel.
Wholesale: a huge sales channel
According to a study from 2023 by the digital platform Joor, which is dedicated to wholesale, international fashion brands expect growth of 27 percent in their wholesale channels this year. What’s more, in 2023, sales in this channel would actually increase: 75 percent of brands said the proportion of their business from wholesale was the same or higher than the previous year, while 33 percent reported a shift from retail to wholesale.
The benefits of the wholesale channel include opening up new markets, in line with a government economic goal announced at the end of August by Olivier Becht, Minister for Foreign Trade, Attractiveness and French Expats. The project: a new export plan that will run over four years with 125 million euros. The aim is to increase the number of French companies that export from 150,000 to 200,000 by 2030.
In this context, the visit of the Who’s Next by Olivia Grégoire, Minister for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, Commerce, Crafts and Tourism, to the fair was an “important gesture of recognition for the sector”, writes Yann Rivoallan, President of the Fédération du Prêt à Porter, on his Linkedin account. Incidentally, in France, between January and June 2023, the clothing sector recorded a 12% increase in exports compared to the corresponding period in 2022 (this figure was collected by the Institut Français de la Mode according to the French customs authorities).
However, and it’s no secret, apparel retailers (other than luxury) are struggling: court-registered waves of renovations, declines in apparel and textile sales compared to the pre-Covid period… In the face of this situation, wholesale appears for many players in the segment as an axis of resilience and growth. “Wholesale, which is increasingly being reconsidered by brands, is indeed central again and is gaining ground as a worthwhile strategy,” said the fair’s press release.
For Sylvie Pourrat, head of WSN offering, wholesale is primarily a question of visibility. “Today we’re really in a scenario where it’s all about being visible to as many people as possible. Everyone can travel, but not everyone does; everyone can go anywhere, but not everyone does. One finds that one often sits at home and orders on the Internet. So at some point you have to be in places of convergence in terms of multidisciplinary audiences, you have to go to the department stores, go where you’re not necessarily going to open stores but where you’ll find a slightly broader ecosystem than the neighborhood you’re positioning yourself in, When you open your own business.”
In addition, the functioning of the wholesale business is changing. “In the past, a wholesale model was written according to a mathematical equation, with a profit margin calculation and so on,” explains Sylvie Pourrat. “Today everything is in a state of upheaval.” The director particularly mentions the emergence of Digital Native Vertical Brands (DNVB) in wholesale, which organize pop-up stores in department stores such as Bon Marché or Galeries Lafayette, although their basic model is aimed more at direct-to-consumer. “That’s what’s interesting today,” Pourrat continues, “to see how this model adapts to the needs of the market.”
Who’s Next, gateway to the international market
The Who’s Next, which has been the flagship of wholesale for almost thirty years, is considered the gateway to the world for French brands, but it is now convincing far more than just the companies from this country. This season, 58 percent of the exhibitors came from abroad (in January it was still around 51 percent).
At the stand of the pretty Brazilian brand Marie Mercié they spoke of the desire to gain a foothold in France and Europe, while at Maria Pavan, a brand from the same country, they declared on Instagram that they had “done good business”; the brand will now be found in “many places around the world”. Finally, the Chinese label Fenggy was pleased to have met buyers from India, Spain, the USA and France.
For the first time, Who’s Next welcomed a Chinese delegation, the Chic Expo fair. And with it around 20 established brands in China, some of which already have more than 2,000 boutiques in the country.
“I wanted to offer a counterpoint to the Shein polemic”.
“It wasn’t easy working in this field,” admits Pourrat. “But I have been putting all my energy into this for six months because I wanted to counterbalance the Shein polemic, which is a real polemic. Everyone has an idea of Chinese fashion, but no one knows how it is ultimately composed. And I always think it’s good to be able to talk about it, to discuss it, to polemicize or not, to defend positions, if you have the right elements in hand to be able to do this. It was important for me to show that Chinese fashion also consists of groups that are organized and that have sustainability awareness in their flesh and blood, they are quantitative but of high quality. They have 2,000 boutiques, but China is not France, they are forced to think big. It’s not the volume of deals that leads to a drop in quality.”
On the part of the Chinese organization, the goal is clear. “We want to convey a message of cultural exchange and promote Chinese fashion through the Who’s Next platform,” Liu Yan, organizer of the Beijing Fashion Expo, which hosts the China International Clothing & Accessories Fair (CHIC), told FashionUnited. “We want to show Europeans what Chinese creativity is.”
Some Made in China brands have found potential local partners in Europe and the Middle East. But beyond the contracts, visiting these labels, already very popular in China, offers the opportunity to receive initial foreign feedback, see how their collections are received in France and internationally, and get acquainted with the transaction methods in Europe particularly affecting exports.
The offer in the CHIC pavilion reflects an aesthetic that combines oriental and international inspiration. For example, the style of the brands K-Boxing and Joeone is very modern. Some of the exhibiting companies are already working with European designers to develop their collections.
Another foreign player joining Who’s Next this season is Neonyt. After participating in January through an information stand, the German fair was a concrete actor in this new edition, bringing with it twelve so-called “eco-responsible” brands. The organizers assume that this number will double for the next edition in January 2024.
However, to meet brands that are aware of environmental issues and produce collections that use less energy and natural resources, it was not necessary to visit the Neonyt section or the Impact section, which was also dedicated to the topic. Many of the exhibiting clothing companies have taken into account the reduction of CO2 emissions in their processes or have developed more environmentally friendly production.
Les Racines du Ciel, an ethical ready-to-wear brand that has exhibited under the Impact banner for several seasons, asked for a repositioning in their original creative space, ‘Fame’. So she was outside of the Neonyt brand pool
Sissel Edelbo is another example of committed brands positioned in the “fame” zone. This Danish label offers upcycled collections where each piece is unique. The brand is currently very successful and has just been included in Le Bon Marché. It was founded in 2004, but “it has really taken off for three years”, assures Pierre-Henri Bernex, Sales and Marketing Associate at the Trendsetteuse showroom.
While brands that marketed themselves as sustainable once didn’t want to be confused with labels that were considered more harmful to the environment, today the style is catching on in the fashion industry. “It’s the truth of the market that speaks,” notes Pourrat.
A careful curation
This season, the fair is communicating an “increased selection” of the 1,200 exhibitors. “We are faced with a flood of inquiries of all kinds,” explains Sylvie Pourrat. “Not because we are the best, but because we are, so to speak, the only European fair that is important for women’s fashion. Our so-called competing fairs are having trouble recovering. So, somewhat by default, Who’s Next has become the international meeting place where people ask. That’s great, except that it’s not the mass and quantity that defines our fair, but the message that the selection conveys. We have been built over the past thirty years around the fact that we must meet the needs of known markets. We know what we’re missing, that can be the chubby woman and so on.”. The “enhanced selection” was thus guided by the need to re-materialize the market segments that needed it.
This careful curation was presented in an animation-rich framework. Gum Bar, Pocket Bar, Karaoke, Dr. Love and much more. There was no shortage of activities. “People come looking for inspiration and momentum,” Pourrat recalls, adding that the organizers’ mission is “to work with emotions.”
The September 2023 edition of Who’s Next was more experiential than ever, reflecting the current goal of multi-brand stores, department stores and concept stores: to offer shoppers emotions, inspire them and leave them wanting more.
This article originally appeared on FashionUnited.fr. Translated and edited by Simone Preuss.