Portland, the US city in Oregon, has become a must-go destination for shows offering performance materials for apparel and footwear as two specialized fabric shows–Première Vision and Performance Days–will launch new show concepts there in 2019.
Portland is already known among insiders for hosting the headquarters of various sports apparel and sneaker brands, including Nike, Under Armour and Adidas, among others.
This same area also hosts The Materials Show, a specialized trade fair happening twice a year in August and February offering components for the sneaker and sport-shoe industry. The show was established in the mid 1990s by Hisham Muhareb, a former materials manager at Nike, and his wife Kari.
As the sports segment has become growingly important and highly inspiring for fashion and sportswear brands on the one side, and activewear is showing always greater attention for aesthetics and new trends, the natural consequence is that some other shows are stepping into this market and trying to attract visitors there too.
Première Vision, the fabric trade-show organization, will launch a new project, Première Vision Sport, expected to happen in August 14-15, 2019 at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland as a partnership with The Materials Show.
Guglielmo Olearo, Première Vision’s international exhibitions director, says: “As we had started our Première Vision Sport & Tech section focused on sports apparel three years ago in Paris and understand that this segment is becoming increasingly important we thought it was a good move starting a new project focused on an even more specialized level. We think that joining The Materials Show in Portland is also strategic as this city is the home for many sports brands.”
The Materials Show and Première Vision Sport will run their shows near each other keeping each organization and show separate. “As I knew The Materials Show and its founder and owner Hisham Muhareb for a while, we decided to start this partnership and collaborate. Though each one’s own business is separate. The Materials Show will continue working with sneaker brands product and design teams, while we will present our selection of exhibitors focused on functional fabrics for apparel. We will also offer very focused trend and color information to activewear specialists–we are number one in this! We simply benefit from visits of the same brands and companies although we work with different teams.”
The Materials Show hosts about 300 exhibitors as it presents a vast selection of components for sports shoes and sneakers such as sole materials, knitwear, leather, laces, accessories and labeling, while PV Sport will host about 60 companies.
He continues: “If in the past anyone going to the gym or playing sports was simply wearing some comfy clothes, today everyone also wants to look great and trendy while feeling well and performing at one’s best. The future of sports apparel is moving in this direction.”
Another partnership was also recently announced between Performance Days, the Munich-based functional fabric fair aimed at insiders of the high performance functional fabric and accessory industry, and Reed Exhibitions, one of the world’s largest exhibition organizers. They have announced the launch of the West Coast US Functional Fabric Fair powered by Performance Days. The new event is scheduled for October 22-23, 2019 and will also take place at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland.
“Following the successful launch of the US Functional Fabric Fair powered by Performance Days in New York City in July 2018, we are pleased to address a market void for a curated sourcing platform for outdoor and activewear functional fabric and accessories in the fall on the West Coast,” says Steve McCullough of Reed Exhibitions. “We are especially pleased to organize this second US event in cooperation, maximizing their breadth of proven expertise to deliver a fair where tomorrow’s outdoor textile trends are on display today.”
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