Première Vision Paris: slight decline of visitors

By

Matthieu Guinebault

Published
Feb 24, 2015

From February 10-12, the Parisian event welcomed 58,443 professionals at its six shows at the Villepinte Exhibition Park. It was a 5% decline, largely attributed to declines of Russian and American visitors. This time, the share of international visitors reached 73%.

Between a complex political and economic situation in Russia and an overlapping schedule with Fashion Week New York, the event’s declines were also explained by "the changing behavior of visitors who, for the sake of time and savings, tended to concentrate their business and limit the frequency of their visits" according to the organizer, Première Vision Sa. 

The 1,793 exhibitors nevertheless saw a solid attendance comprised of 121 nationalities. France remained the number one country in terms of numbers of visitors (27% of total) followed by the United Kingdom (13%), Italy (12%), Spain (6%) and Germany (5%). These were followed by Turkey (4%), the USA (3%), Belgium (3%), Japan (3%) and the Netherlands (2%). 

More broadly, Europe made up 77% of the total number of visitors, ranking well ahead of Asia (9%), the Middle East (5%), North America (3%), South America (2%), Africa (2%) and European countries outside the EU and former Eastern bloc countries (2%). 

"Our new ‘brand policy’ was pretty well received by visitors, who found the show to be very coherent," said Gilles Lasbordes, the head of Première Vision Paris. "This edition was more active than the decline in attendance suggests, with sustained business and an overall solid event. This is encouraging because the danger faced by this session was the change in identity. But visitors quickly found their way through the division based on craft."

The next edition of Première Vision Paris will be held from September 15-17. Before then, the organizer has planned events in Istanbul (March 11-13), Sao Paulo (May 12-13) and New York (July 21-22), while Denim by Première Vision will take place from May 27 to 28 in Barcelona.