REVIEW BREAD & BUTTER BARCELONA JANUARY 2009

Brilliant conclusion in Barcelona

UNITED NATIONS OF BREAD AND BUTTER – internationality was the motto of the eighth and last BBBarcelona, which lived up to its name. 800 brands and 79.942 professional visitors from over 100 countries came to the Catalan capital from 21-23 January 2009.

Karl-Heinz Müller: “Despite the slightly lower frequency, the atmosphere was fantastic. Exhibitors and visitors have not allowed themselves to be impressed by the financial crisis. This last event was the best one. With this extraordinary result behind us, we face our new project.“

A result which once again verifies BREAD & BUTTER’s status as the international obligatory date for the industry, and as the leading tradeshow for Street and Urbanwear. All sides especially emphasized the positive and industrious atmosphere at the tradeshow, the unique quality of the professional visitors and the perfect organisation.

Karl-Heinz Müller: “Our Active Guest Management provides us with perfect insights into our visitor structure. All important, international trading houses were there. The quality of our visitors was better than ever before. Our community is a solid, unshakable base and will carry on following us in the future, if we provide the right answers to the needs and requirements of the time. We will continue to make a great effort.”

Apart from a once again strong exhibitor portfolio with 800 of the most important international Urban- and Streetwear brands, the BBBarcelona offered its visitors a number of real highlights:

Tattoo- and Vintage legend Christian Audigier presented himself on the Avenida on approx. 1000 m² and within a collective presentation platform with his different collections Christian Audigier, Ed Hardy, Smet, Crystal Rock, Paco Chicano and C-BAR-A. The impressive appearance was accompanied by two daily, collective fashion shows.

Wrangler also captivated with an extraordinary brand performance in Luna Park, where the Wrangler spirit was demonstrated live in a spectacular steep face motorbike show.

Dutch label G-Star once again presented its collection to the trade visitors in a booth in the Denim Base Area and in daily, impressive fashion shows in the G-Star tent in Luna Park.

The Desigual fashion show on Tuesday evening as well as the Custo Barcelona fashion show with a subsequent lavish party on Thursday were further brand events during BBBarcelona.

In the Sport & Street Area on level 3, The BREAD & BUTTER Flea Market took place for the first time: international Streetwear Stores such as Azita (Frankfurt), Caliroots (Stockholm), Index Book (Barcelona), Limiteditions (Barcelona), Reed Space (New York), Slam Jam x Chikashitsu (Barcelona), Solebox (Berlin) und Wood Wood (Berlin/Copenhagen), sold “special collaboration items” here, treasures from their personal fund, and winter 08 collection pieces.
In this way, not only were all BBB visitors provided with a special shopping experience, moreover, retailers were provided with an own presentation- and business platform at BREAD & BUTTER for the first time.

Also the cooperation with the “Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts” was continued: under the direction of Creative Director Walter van Beirendonck, selected first-year students (B.A.) showed their creations in the B&B Design exhibition “The denim skirt; novel interpretations of a contemporary classic”. For the first time, the students have designed denim skirts – top denim producer TRC CANDIANI has provided the denim for this project for free.

THE SOURCE: TREND SHOW AND MEETING POINT FOR THE APPAREL SOURCING INDUSTRY

THE SOURCE, the B&B platform for marketing and communication for the apparel sourcing industry, took place open to all visitors in two central locations this season:

In Luna Park, THE SOURCE presented various greats of the denim industry in a denim-oriented THE SOURCE pavilion. Among the exhibiting denim weavers, finishers and the related accessory producers were: Blastex – Jeans Finishing Systems, Bottonificio BAP, Candiani Premium Selvedge, ITV Industria Tessile del Vomano, Limonta, Okinawa, r&dlab, Reca Group and Royo.

Karl-Heinz Müller: “This season, we have sent THE SOURCE into the next round with less exhibitors, and have been more selective in terms of quality. It was important for us to centrally integrate THE SOURCE into BREAD & BUTTER, in order to generally create a stronger awareness for the production process.

Apart from that, numerous THE SOURCE exhibitors such as Swarovski presented themselves on the first level of Hall 2 with their own showcases.

BREAD & BUTTER – STYLESIGHT: In cooperation with the leading New York trend agency Stylesight and under the special direction of Stylesight CEO Franklin Bober, BREAD & BUTTER developed innovative trend seminars for UNITED NATIONS, which were exclusively presented at BBBarcelona. The interactive seminars highlighted the most important tendencies and social developments from the areas of fashion, fabrics, lifestyle, music and youth culture and were open to all visitors.

All together, five seminars/podium discussions took place, which attracted extremely wide interest among the experts. All dates were strongly frequented. The auditorium, built especially for these events, was partially overcrowded.

Already on the first day of the event, the Denim Talk with the topic “GLOBAL DENIM CULTURE” took place. Guest speakers were industry greats such as Giorgio Presca (VF Corporation), Alberto Candiani (TRC Candiani), Umberto Brocchetto (RadRags), Yuji Honzawa (Doctor Denim Honzawa), Jos van Tilburg (G-Star), Mamoru Kaihara (Kaihara Denim), Yukiko Mae (Kurabo Industries) and Masaharu Tanaka (Nisshinbo Textiles). The Denim Talk was moderated by industry insiders Bruno Collin (WAD Magazine) and Jason Schlossberg (Kwittken/Stylesight).

“With our own seminars and round tables, we have worked up important topics for all visitors in an interactive way. I am very happy with the great contentment of the THE SOURCE exhibitors with their presence this season. We will further continue and expand the integration of the apparel sourcing industry into BREAD & BUTTER in the future and in our new location”, says Karl-Heinz Müller.

“CREATIVE R’EVOLUTION – 50 Years of Fluxus from the Archivio Bonotto”, an exhibition of numerous major works of the Fluxus movement, curated by renowned weaver Luigi Bonotto.
The 120 objects displayed at THE SOURCE come from one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of this revolutionary art movement, the Archivio Bonotto. Among the objects displayed were works by famous avant-garde artists such as Joseph Beuys, Nam June Paik and Yoko Ono. The exhibition was opened with an extraordinary vernissage on the first day of the tradeshow with live performances by worldwide famous artists Ben Patterson, Ben Vautier and Philip Corner, as well as with an art installation created exclusively for BBBarcelona by Ben Vautier. BREAD & BUTTER was honoured to greet Luigi Bonotto in person as a host.

THANK YOU BARCELONA

With the tradeshow “UNITED NATIONS OF BREAD & BUTTER” which ended last Friday, our dedication in Barcelona found its crowning conclusion. After four years and eight successful events, BREAD & BUTTER – tradeshow for selected brands says good bye to the Catalan capital. At the press conference on 23rd January 2009 in Barcelona, Managing Director Karl-Heinz Müller announced the decision to hold the upcoming BREAD & BUTTER in another city, and in a new location.

Karl-Heinz Müller: “It is an incredible result which we could draw with BREAD & BUTTER BARCELONA. All in all, we were able to greet more than 600.000 visitors in Barcelona during the last four years, here, we advanced to become the international leading tradeshow for Street and Urbanwear in Europe. Barcelona was a great choice – however: “It’s time to move on.”

It was expressively emphasised at the press conference that BREAD & BUTTER’s leaving Barcelona is solely due to entrepreneurial and marketing reasons.

Karl-Heinz Müller: “The fact that we move on has nothing to do with anything not being good. Barcelona was the perfect host. But BREAD & BUTTER is independent and always acts autarchic. It is and remains our philosophy to work for the market: the market is the boss – and right now, what this boss needs is a profound renewal and progression.”

Within the press conference, which took place on the morning of the third and last day of the tradeshow on the grounds of the Fira, Karl-Heinz Müller officially thanked the town of Barcelona, the mayor Jordi Hereu, the Ajuntament, the Generalitat as well as all other organisations, first of all the Fira de Barcelona and its General Manager Augustín Cordón.

“Thank you for the incredibly good cooperation. Our way of work has always been fair and trustful. We have been supported and carried by the whole city. During the last four years, we have become a part of Barcelona”, Müller said.

Augustín Cordón also officially said good bye to BREAD & BUTTER and gave a positive outlook into the future:

“It was a pleasure and a privilege to be able to work with you. Of course it is not easy to say good bye to BREAD & BUTTER, which has grown so much in Barcelona. But we know that the dynamic process of the tradeshow is an important part of it. BREAD & BUTTER now follows its new way – and Barcelona as well!”

Karl-Heinz Müller concludes: “Barcelona will always play a big role in the history of BREAD & BUTTER. We have become big here, and have matured as a company. We will always look back at our time in Barcelona with pride and joy! We only keep good memories!”

The new location of BREAD & BUTTER will be officially announced within a few days.

Berlin, 26 January 2009

BREAD & butter Berlin GmbH
Münzstraße 13
10178 Berlin, Germany
Fon: +49 (0)30 400 44 - 0
Fax: +49 (0)30 400 44 101

Press Contact:

Nadine Sanchez
nadine.sanchez@breadandbutter.com
Fon +49 (0)30 400 44 195
Fax +49 (0)30 400 44 150

Jenny Boers
THE SOURCE
jenny.boers@breadandbutter.com
Fon +49 (0)30 400 44 233
Fax +49 (0)30 400 44 101

This release was published on openPR.