Boasting 208 registered exhibiting companies who came together from 11 countries, the 28^th edition of SPINEXPO^TM Shanghai continues its evolution. Now presenting in three continents where the promotion of its exhibitors reinforces itself through presentations to key buyers from around the world.  This session witnessed the most visitors ever on the first day, coinciding with the opening of the G20.The show continues its evolution from one edition to the next and focuses on offering to buyers a comprehensive sourcing platform for emerging trends and market research.

The opening of the G20 has been a source of many challenges, from visitors from outside China not able to receive visas, to visitors from Hangzhou province moved out of the city and finding it more difficult to visit the exhibition than expected.  This was the reason for the exhibition to have less of a “buzz” than previous sessions, with some exhibitors commenting that they found it less dynamic when others found it a success.  It was particularly visible with fewer visitors from European, Middle Eastern and eastern European countries. What SPINEXPO^TM organizers witnessed are that the sourcing companies were more driven to the Autumn/Winter products, clearly looking for new developments and less driven to check other offerings such as Spring/Summer season. Generally the business was neither up nor down, but stable. Where exhibiting companies are well established they profit from their reliability and recognition from the top buyers and end up being rather untouched by the economy or the condition of the textile sector.

Confirming high registration figures, with5493 visitors on day one, 3927 visitors with 1662 re-entries on day two, and 1362 visitors with 2192 re-entries on day three, the 28^th edition of SPINEXPO^TM Shanghai almost equalled the attendance of the former S/S session 10819 visitors and was up 7% from the previous AW 2015 session.  The total attendance was 10782 visitors and 14347 with the re-entries, a good rise of re-entries meaning visitors spending more than 2 days at the show. Despite a lower number of visitors from areas such as the EU other visiting countries are clearly on the rise with an increased number of Japanese, Hong Kong, Korean and US buyers.

We welcomed 477Japanesevisitors one year ago at the AW 2015 show, 480 at the SS session in 2016 and 560 this session. Hong Kong provided 708 visitors and Korea 186 visitors.

SPINEXPO^TM revamped trend areas are now an integral element of the show, with a real sense of seasonality.

The main trend area mixed SPINACTIVE, a research area in a new and unique format designed by Eva DeLaat, with the collaboration of Santoni Shanghai. ALL IN ONE, by Steven Oo, a capsule divided in three directions and illustrating how one yarn can capture all aspects of the day, offered exquisite garments from hosiery and lounge through to outerwear.

SPINEXPLORE combined the interpretation of SPINEXPO^TM trend sections by M.OH.K, a studio launched by Helga Matos and OdinaKeim, teachers at Winchester school of Art in the UK. They combined all five stories that embraced Biomimicry and delved deep into their research of all areas. Creating both banners and swatches M.OH.K have managed to capture the essence of each story within their pieces and truly complement the main SPINEXPLORE presentation.

SPINEXPLORE has become a key section to the SPINEXPO^TM presentation, with both international and domestic visitors seeking yarn, innovative stitch and concept inspiration. This area allows each exhibitor to have yarns and innovative stitches showcased in a creative environment and alongside swatches from our international SPINEXPO^TM design team. Visitors have indicated how important this area has become as other international shows do not present such a complete presentation or allow photos or handling of the swatches. So at a time where the other markets offer little creativity and innovation this area has become a platform for commercial inspiration and an area to discover new spinners within.

EXPLORE ITALIAN YARNS

This season a new area named Explore Italy was launched next to the current Spinexplore display to help showcase some of the key Italian yarns on offer. With collaboration between the Italian exhibitors, Rory Longdon and SPINEXPO^TM, this new area Inspired by our ‘Animal’ theme was launched. Rory was able to take these beautiful yarns and showcase them in mini capsules per spinner allowing visitors to easily browse what was on offer and to then visit with the Italian exhibitors directly.

SPINEXCLUSIVE

With five key trends on offer this season, our SPINEXCLUSIVE designers presented mini capsule collections that focussed on some of the new key yarns and running items for this season from our exhibitors.

We saw from Jo Bee a capsule collection inspired by Insects that focussed on Xinao’s merino yarns. Firstly showcasing one of their new products called ‘Stripe’, a stretch merino that offers a nice palette of irregular striped effect stretch merinos, which brings a fresh element to the merino market. Other merinos used were running items from Xinao that had been plied up to create refreshing new three dimensional cable details.

Uki Lau and Steven Oo also focussed on the insect story using yarns from Top Line, Armonia, Winning, Xinao, Sawada and Sinfonia to create their capsules. Both playing with computer knit stitches, textures and surface details to really showcase the yarns in use.

Hope Hudson was new to the Exclusive area this season showcasing a capsule of 5 pieces produced on a domestic knitting machine that pushed knitted techniques such as stitch transfer, in-lays, texture and partial knitting to create pieces that embraced our Molecular story.

Rory Londgon took yarns from Yarns&Colors, Top Line and Winning this season into a whole new realm. With inspiration taken from the molecular story Rory wanted to look at macro views of molecular structures and how something that looked crisp to the naked eye, then looked the complete opposite under a microscope and how once sharp edges became blurred and fuzzy. Using a combination of Winning and Topline yarns Rory was able to create some beautiful structures that were then boiled and brushed leaving some yarns transformed and some in their original state. His second story was inspired by Earth scapes and in complete contrast to his first group. Rory took shapes and structures visible only from satellite views and transferred them into knitted structures that captured these forms.

Katie Hanlan took the front stage this season in creating two spectacular pieces inspired by our Animal story. Using her beautiful hand crochet techniques that she is known for, she took UPW, Winning and AA global yarns transforming them into two standout pieces that used each yarn in multiple techniques. Covering hand crochet, hand flat knitting and hand twisting of yarns plus brushing sections she really captured the essence of our story in full.

Products

The main word being used by both the international and domestic visitors was ‘Stock Service’ once again. With more and more brands buying more carefully, the demand for flexibility, quick delivery, small quantity and trend appropriate colours is key. We saw more of the spinners offering such services this season and adapting to the buyers demands than ever before. With novelty spinners such as Loyal Light also offering this service it clearly shows that this is the new direction that the exhibitors are taking.

Cashmere was still very important throughout the show, with most international and domestic brands now offering 100% cashmere within each of their ranges. We have not necessarily seen a decrease of price based on the high demand, instead we have seen a increase of Cashmere suppliers coming to the table offering bigger and better colour cards, more easy-care solutions and an increase of blended options to add additional qualities to this category. The exhibitors are driving better quality instead of cheaper price points, however the demand from the visitor is to guarantee that these stock services are true stock services and products can be delivered quickly as in some cases the stock options are in fact out of stock.

The other key yarn of the season is still 100% merino. Next to the cashmere ranges we are seeing in the market, we are also seeing the merino ranges growing fast. This year we saw the introduction of more stretch merinos from the leading merino suppliers that allow more flexibility with this core yarn. The merino ranges in general are growing at a fast pace and once again are now offering more complete colour cards and variations on finishing such as boiled, felted, striped, performance finishes and more offerings around the Total easy care solutions.

Other key standouts this season have been the surged in the demand for Hand knitting yarns. We have seen multiple leading spinners adding more novelty pieces to their collections, which have included these. There were beautiful hand knitting lily yarns from Fashion yarns, roving yarns in space dyes and solids from Loyal light, a range of beautiful hand knit novelties from Cariaggi and Topline.

In terms of functional/ performance yarns we heard the demand for Cotton with performance aspects was in high demand allowing for a yarn that could be used all year round across multiple product groups. Elastic/ stretch yarns in general were still key both for true performance wear brands and commercial high street brands who are still chasing the active wear trend in fashion pieces. Hybrid collections that cover merinos, wool& cashmeres were very much sort after, with a increased demand from performance brands looking for products that could adjust and adapt with the consumer throughout a 24 hour period. Designers and buyers have been looking to other industries for such products as more and more yarns and textiles are becoming relevant within the garment field such as car manufacturing, aviation and even the mattress industry where we saw Eva delaat incorporate warming and cooling yarns used from this field and directly inserted them into the active wear industry. The demand for new development is strong within this field. The visitors want to see more advanced development that really pushes performance and incorporates technology from outside our immediate industry.