News from the shows

2010-02-23T10:59:00.016Z

Well, here we go again. We've had some deliveries of the spring and summer collections with a fair few more still to come in. Some styles are now sold out and some are selling so well that we have placed quite a few re-orders for repeats.
The collections that have largely found favour so far are those of Condici and it's associated label of Ispirato, outfit shown to the left

Ian Stuart which has been tremendously well received, John Charles, Presen has been fantastic with it's associated labels of Mireia and Jorgina, as has Luis Civit.
Of course there are other designers that have been selling very nicely too and to name them all would fill a blog of its own. What is apparent though is that the effects of the recession seem to be fizzling out. Women are still being married, mothers are still in need of that special outfit and life has to go on. Of course the differential in the exchange rate from the Euro to the Pound is still having some impact although the exchange rate is beginning to come back in our favour.
So with this season now well under way we find ourselves having to commit to purchasing the autumn collections.
Talk about needing a crystal ball.

So off to the shows we went on Saturday 13th Feb for visits to London Olympia and the showrooms dotted around London itself.
Our first venture was into the showroom of Luis Civit and to be honest they always have a really good collection so although we had decided to take things steady with orders for the autumn we found ourselves taking more than we had anticipated. Some of the photo's from this collection will shortly be posted on the website for your perusal
pre-season.

Off to Olympia following this and we had a really good look around before making any decisions as there seemed to be some new collections as well as existing suppliers collections which had seen vast improvement since our last buying spree.

The Ian Stuart autumn collection continues to bring excitement to events such as this. His new collection for mother of the bride was absolutely exquisite. I can't take photo's at the shows with this collection so you'll have to wait until I get an official release of pictures but his stand was perhaps the best for style in the whole show. A picture from this spring collection is alongside to give you an idea of the sort of fashions he is renowned for. Ian is bound to do well with his more exclusive collections. His style remains so individual that it has become his trademark in only 3 seasons since inception. Oh, a word to Ian, I hope your leg is better now.....
Our present favourites for the less expensive fashions have among them the large collection from John Charles. I haven't dealt much with them until the last couple of seasons when they brought out a mother of the bride/special occasion collection. Their stand was alive. You almost had to elbow people out of the way to get onto the stand and the order pads were catching fire at the speed they were being written into.
John Charles has hit the mark with its modern and delightful use of styles and colours with suitable material, all of which in the correct combination manages to keep prices at a very reasonable level. I have some pictures from this collection already and one of them is to the left. Naturally we never get a full folio of pictures so its always difficult to give anything other than an quick overview.
Of the collections that have sold well this season so far this is one that pretty much stands out. It has a disadvantage in that it tends not to do repeats in season though so we find ourselves where we do lose sales for lack of stock. This is a pity as other collections such as Ian Stuart, Presen (group) Paule Vasseur etc all do repeats and we place lots of them to everyones advantage.
Never mind though. Better to completely sell out in a single season than buy too many and find lots still with us when the season has blown through.
Apart from that, it seems that John Charles has got the market share it deserves and will no doubt go from strength to strength, and better still it's a British company.

A lot of time was spent on the Presen stand of Mandy Barr. As mentioned this company from Barcelona has within the group the delightful collections of Presen, Mireia and Jorgina. All of them are designed by different people and each collection is individually different. Within each collection there are examples of absolute joy. We know the work that's put into making these collections work and believe me when I say that they are superb in every respect. The price point is what is best described as probably upper mid range though there are examples of more exquisite outfits in the upper price range and others down to a very reasonable level on par with the John Charles collection for instance.
ThePaule Vasseur collection for the autumn has new colours and some favourite styles and anyone familiar with this collection will feel at home. They continue to inspire and reflect the absolute best in Parisienne styling. Now in the hands of the UK agent following some mismanagement problems with the French company, we wish him the very best in his personal venture and will support him as much as we possibly can.
I dropped onto a stand to view a collection I hadn't seen previously and was pleased at the styling and colours of the outfits on display.
I must divert you to something different at this point before I continue. I think you'll see the funny side when I finish.
Our website has a pretty clever webcounter on it. It tells me exactly what people have typed into a search engine in order to find our website. So for instance if you typed "Paule Vasseur North-east" into Google or Yahoo etc, we will know.
We will also know the area that you live in, the operating system of your computer, it's screen resolution and loads more stuff. However it's the point that we will know what you typed into Google that brings some amusement to this post.
To continue with this newly discovered collection. It's called Love.
Can you imagine how many hits our website will get from ladies looking for Love????
Picture to the left
It's just as well we don't pay per click for website visitors or we could soon face massive debts.
So, the Love collection is very much in the style of a lot of the frilly collar, ruched dress etc outfits common to current occasion-wear collections but at a very reasonable price.

From the Betty Barclay group we have taken a selection of the Vera Mont label. They are certainly worthy of the space they take on our rails with a flair for style and inspired colours. We have taken the spring collection from them and have been relatively pleased with it so far.
Another collection that has sprung into our vision is that of Irristible. This is a low price alternative in some pretty nice styles. Just what a lot of ladies are looking for in a certain price bracket and to be honest we sold a fair few in next to no time in a period of two days from delivery this spring.
The Ann Balon collection seems to bring on new colours and styles each season. Although they are Italian lace outfits, considered by some to be "mumsey" there is a never ending succession of emails from people sourcing them so although we cannot stock anything other than a mere representative selection we always try and do in-season reorders as needed. This is the beauty of Ann Balon. What we see now is what we get this season so we can keep up to demand more easily. If that was only the case with all other collections it would make life more comfortable for us.
For those ladies who like the styling of the Ann Balon outfit but are just unable to afford them we have just taken another small sample of similar outfits made from silk rather than lace and have a better price structure to them they are from the stable of Soulmates and a picture is shown to the left. Prices start somewhere around half that of an Ann Balon but don't be fooled into thinking that it is the same as the Ann Balon.
It is good quality but the difference in cost is that it's made from less expensive silk and from the far-east. Sizes go up to XXXL so there';s scope for something for the larger lady who is seeking a low cost alternative to the Balon. Better this than something that has been used which is on sale from Ebay I guess.
We find that the larger sizes are hard to come by. there are so few manufacturers who go into the 20's and the upper 20's are almost entirely reliant on the knittted/crocheted/woven sort of outfit such as the Soulmates and Ann Balon.
Although Claudia Stevens does go into the 20's it simply doesn't appeal personally this season. We have still to look at the Personal Choice from Michael H and they are generally pretty good in larger size styling so here's hoping.....
We continue to buy an assortment from the huge collections of Montage and it's associated labels. Some of the old favourites are still on show and despite some of them being more than a few seasons old in style they still lack nothing for the modern mother of the bride. They also do quite a decent selection for the second time around bride as well as the more mature bride who doesn't want a traditional wedding gown. Our favourite is the 29996 shown to the left, which has been exceptionally well received this last season. We have also added a couple of extra styles for this particular market as well as some new styles for the general mother of the bride requirement.
The Montage collections are huge. We cannot begin to scratch the surface of these individual labels so are relying on the in-season re-order again which has been so successful in past seasons.

That's pretty much from the shows for now. We have other collections to view still but we are now concentrating our efforts on finding smart day wear for the autumn. We have a couple of very nice labels for this season such as the Leslie of Monte Carlo and the Carlopik but these are new to us so we want to see how we get on with these before we commit ourselves to another order.

Fashion Digest

News from the shows