Market Report — New York
-- Gifts & Decorative Accessories, 2/4/2008 9:33:00 AM
February 4, 2008 — Show management and exhibitors alike were on tenterhooks Friday morning, keeping their fingers crossed as doors to the New York International Gift Show swung open. The opening day question: Would the buyers come? This year’s show had its early opening days for the Piers and the Handmade sections at Javits on Friday instead of the usual Saturday. And the rainy weather didn’t help the anxiety much. “Of course we’re here! We read,” said one customer to exhibitor Nancy Dunitz, of Dunitz & Company, Hollywood, CA. So it seems buyers are paying attention to promotional materials.
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| A view of the show floor |
Saturday morning, when the rest of the fair opened, appeared much quieter than a normal opening day, although traffic did build throughout the day.
It's still up in the air how the show's new Friday and Saturday opening pattern (driven by Pier availability) affected traffic. Handmade exhibitors we spoke to on Friday seemed surprised and pleased by the number of attendees who turned out, in spite of rainy weather. But despite pockets of frenetic activity (such as we saw at Envirosax and Kooky Pens on Saturday, several Javits exhibitors mentioned that traffic was on the slow side, and hoped for a boost on Sunday and Monday, when Javits has traditionally opened.
“The one-time pattern change is a result of passenger ship traffic at the Piers, stated GLM’s senior vice-president Dorothy Belshaw, NYIGF director. “The traffic flow has been different this winter with the Friday/Saturday opening, but the attendance numbers have been comparable with past openings. Although it is difficult to make a day-to-day comparison—especially because last winter all NYIGF exhibits/locations opened on a Sunday—we have strong national attendance and increases in international attendance. The show will return to its typical Saturday/Sunday opening in August.”
Colorful
Ankasa introduced a new Roman Holiday collection with an architectural focus. The black and white collection features drawings of doorways, gates and rooftops on pillows, bedding and wall decor. For added pop, the company threw in a splash of blue — which sales and marketing assistant Sara Weiner says was spotted on the fashion runways. Also new at Ankasa, Buddha’s Delight is a collection of caramel, nougat and neutral tones. Flower Power is the company’s water resistant collection, and features flowers in bright red, blue, orange and yellow. Shibori, also spotted on the fashion runways, is a type of tie-dying that is very specific. Ankasa is expanding its collection of ottomans with more styles. The company is also expanding its wall decor, introduced at High Point in 2007 along with the ottomans. They are customizable and can make pillow and ottoman designs from the existing pillow patterns.
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| Jamie Young Company |
Expansions and Extensions
Shine Home moved to a bigger space for this show, allowing the company to showcase its extensive collection of decorative accessories as well as furniture. The collection has an elegant look, with a bit of an edge in fashion-forward colors. Also in a new space is Vellum, which offers higher end accessories. We found a fun rhinoceros lamp as well as traditional pieces in Italian and Baroque styles.
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| Studio Vertu |
Best known for its bedding and bath collections, Croscill Home introduced a new home collection of lamps and accent furniture. The company wanted to offer customers something with a great look at a great value, according to Debra Finn. The pieces are traditional, made from mother of pearl, porcelain, glass and crackled mercury. The line also includes accent tables and ottomans that can coordinate with existing bedding and bath collections. Croscill also introduced a selection of pet beds in luxurious patterns at affordable prices: $39.99 for a small and $49.99 for a medium.
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| Zebi Baby |
A Home Ecelctic got its start in accent furniture and is now adding decorative accessories to the line. The colorful collection includes boxes, vases, accent tables and more.
New and Notable
Jardins en Fleur is a new exhibitor, and president/co-founder Simon Scott said the response to the line is amazing. The collection started with silk wallpaper and then expanded into an entire lifestyle collection of Asian-inspired accessories, but with a modern twist. “It’s a European take on traditional Chinese design, where we use modern colors and try not to make it look too traditional,” he said.
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| Smooff |
Superdeluxe is a two-year-old company that is exhibiting in New York for the first time. The company offers a selection of accessories featuring its own patterns created in New York by a team of three. The line includes paperweights, pillows, napkins, wallpaper and more. Superdeluxe also offers a unique take on the popular monogram —they take a letter and create a pattern out of it, so it’s not your traditional monogrammed item; it’s got a little twist.
Trending
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| Late for the Sky |
Borealis Press is the Go Green Team with its Treading Lightly notecards, “The Greenest cards you can buy.” They are made from 100 percent post consumer waste, printed with vegetable inks, using wind-generated power. There are four embossed styles: thank you, get well, well done and thinking of you.
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| Mio |
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| Ige |
We saw some evidence that the baroque/Victorian/naturalistic theme in silhouettes is broadening to include other graphic elements, including Walter's retro geographic shapes and graphic trees votive holders at Charles & Marie Quintessentials. Combining silhouettes with the earth-friendly trend, Decor Craft Inc and Tair Mercier both offer globe motifs.
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| Goldbug Studio |
On the Paper Trail
Greeting card and stationery companies continue to broaden their lines while maintaining the established look and feel. Blue Mountain Arts is showing new, handmade magnetic notepads that have an embellished, matted frame at the top. Inside of each frame is the same type of message or sentiment found on Blue Mountain’s greeting cards. Also new are handmade, folding poetry photo frames that include a poem on one side and space to insert a photo on the other. These come in a range of softly colored designs.
Bottman Designs has expanded its Lainie’s Ladies line with soy candle gifts in glass containers and also sticky notes that come in a small lidded desk box.
Knock Knock is catching the eye of a lot of customers with its new line of file folders emblazoned with bold, graphic type announcing such organizational categories as “More Crap.” Knock Knock is venturing into new territory this year, taking its product lines to CAMEX, a trade show for college bookstores. Since the company introduced a line of humorous books this past year, it will also exhibit at Book Expo, for the book trade. “We want to see whether we are regarded as a legitimate book publisher,” says Randy Erlandson. And for a company that is only five years old, “Business is nothing but stupendous!” he said proudly.
After years of being located on the lower level of Javits, Lady Jayne moved up onto the main floor, and is thrilled by the brighter space. “We are being ‘discovered’ by a lot of new customers who had not seen or carried the line before,” notes Barbara Rosenberg.
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| Design Design |
Up with Fun
Wry Baby
With Super Tuesday fast upon us, politics and the election were very much in evidence around the show. Wry Baby has a line of children’s t-shirts with fun political statements. And the whole booth was decked out in red,white and blue! Politicards prominently displayed its playing cards in several sizes featuring comic caricatures of current political figures.
Those fun collectible Kooky Klicker pens that are the rage among the younger set are now capturing attention as plush and bean bags. Each piece comes with the same Krew number and name on the back as the pen character on which it is based. The three styles from Commonwealth Toy are Kooky Bean Bags, Kooky Krewmates, and Kooky Kuddles, which are large pillow like plush
Ever inventive, Fred & Friends is having fun with its “To-Do Tattoos,” which consist of a temporary tattoo of list “to do” list to apply to your hand or arm or wherever. It comes with a pen to write safely upon the skin. Joe Edmundson notes that business is up over 50 percent.
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| Adorn Sticker Couture |
Advice….
In a business in which the mantra is "What's new?" buyers may be missing the mark if they are not making the Metropolitan Pavilion a destination. That’s where they’ll find exhibitors who truly represent "what's new.” Among them, Three Designing Women, out of Dallas, whose Instampables line captured rave reviews when it debuted at the National Stationery Show; and Finger Magic Origami Art, sterling silver jewelry made in the paper folding technique.
— Caroline Kennedy, Bessie Nestoras and Meredith Schwartz
