The 2008 fashion season will open in New York in January with the pre-collections of the clothing textiles for the spring-summer of 2009. Italian firms are ready to play a leading role in the Premier Vision New York fair , the US branch of the Paris Première Vision showroom, which has become one of the highlight events for the textile & clothing industry.

The date is set for the 23-24^th January in the usual location of the Metropolitan Pavilion & Altman Building. It will be a fair dedicated to clothing textiles in which Italian firms in this sector (but firms producing clothing accessories, such as buttons, will also be present) are set to repeat their considerable presence at the last edition of the fair, in July 2007, when 50 out of a total of 128 exhibitors were part of the official delegation organised by the Italian Trade Commission (ICE). In other words, more than a third of the exhibiting firms came from Italy.

The Italian delegation at the January event will be similar in size: around 50 firms are expected to take part in the delegation for New York, which ICE has branded “I-TexStyle”.

Since Premier Vision is a global showcase for the textile & clothing industry which – as a result of an explicit choice of the organisers – only include the top industries in the sector, the best Italian firms from the historical districts in Biella (for wool), Como (for silk), Lombardy (for cotton) and Prato (traditionally a wool district, but which has diversified production in the last few years).

In total, about 150 exhibitors will be admitted at the New York fair: all of them will be high end producers which will have been invited by the organisers on the basis of their past participation in the Première Vision and Modamont events in Paris. The exhibitors will be pooled around different “universes of style”: fancy seduction, tailored distinction, relaxed attitude, active pulsation e accessories. The event is mainly aimed at garment makers who are looking for new sources of inspiration in terms of textiles, but it will also be visited by stylists and importers from North America, especially the US.

Italy is the fourth source of textile imports for the US: according to the latest ICE data, its market share was 7.8% in the January-April period of 2007. Imports were particularly buoyant for silk textiles and yarns ( 12.55%) and for cotton products ( 11.75%): both sectors registered double-figure growth figures notwithstanding the damping effect from the appreciation of the euro over the dollar. Despite the strong euro, Italy’s exports to the US grew by slightly more than those of its direct competitors. This is due to the added value, in terms of quality, that US buyers recognise in Italian-made products. On the whole, in the first seven months of 2007 Italian textiles exports to the US have surpassed the 180 million dollar level, with a trade surplus of over 168 million dollars (ICE source).