The main reason for the trip was of course fashion. We went to two textile trade fairs, Premier Vision and Texworld. We bumped in to two celebrities, one more infinitely exciting than the other. Which is a good way to describe the trade fairs too.
Texworld (let’s call it the Paris Hilton of trade fairs) was…fine. I love fabric, and when I started studying fashion I became a bit of a fabric snob, messing about with silk satin and linen and openly laughing at synthetics.. But. Texworld. If I’d been going as a buyer of fabric, or with some sort of souring mission, I think I would have enjoyed it. Most of us spent a large portion of time in the rest area, where there was large bean bag chairs.
There was some beautiful fabric though, and I think it’s a shame that some of it will probably never made it to fabric shops, giving the little people a chance to buy it. Minimum orders were sometimes not pretty.
Premier Vision (Let’s call it the Karl Lagerfeld of trade fairs) was really great. It’s HUGE, and I’m pretty sure if you can’t find it at premier Vision, it just doesn’t exist. I noticed that at the Indigo section the UK seemed to really dominate the printed textile market, with more companies from the UK than any other. A couple of university’s were showing there too, and I thought it was a real shame that The Scottish School of textiles wasn’t represented in anyway.
The indigo Section also had a amazing vintage section, where designers could buy vintage pieces as inspiration. So much of the vintage on show was devastatingly incredible, and if I had had a few hundred euro to spare, I would have loved to have bought something. Prices were very high, but so was the quality- these people are expert source-ers- so it was understandable.
I’m leaving it up to Athif to give you the low down on our celebrity sightings, and tourist times.
We got our picture taken by the organisers of Le Cuir Paris (the fur and leather section of premier vision)
From Left to right:
Frannie, Leanne, Me and Sam
Emily X
