Organised by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (TDC), World Boutique, Hong Kong will be staged at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre from January 17 - 20, 2006. This is the fourth time that the show is being hosted.

Here is a link to the webcast from 2005 trade show.

Here is the link to the 2006 Hong Kong Fashion Week Show.

Preliminary reports indicate that garment sales have been rather dismal this year.

“Based on what we’ve heard and seen so far, the fashion apparel stores and department stores are going to be hit with lower profits,” said Kurt Barnard, president of Retail Forecasting Group, which tracks industry trends and consumer spending patterns. The firm surveyed spending of consumers around the United States and noted more aggressive sale signs in windows. “Whatever strengths fashion apparel did show came from deep markdowns,” Barnard said.

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Looks like the 2005 Holiday season was a big success for clothing eTailers like Gap, Eddie Bauer, Walmart. A eSpending report has come out which suggests that people are getting comfortable with buying garments online!

A Goldman, Sachs & Co, Nielsen/NetRatings and Harris Interactive for the Holiday eSpending Report indicates that clothing topped the online buyers choice while clubbing computers and consumer electronics together, ensured the latter two to top and corner 28 percent of the online spend at $3.75 billion and $3.67 billion, respectively.

The study was conducted covering 1000 adults and was restricted to US buying alone.

Clothing maker Tommy Hilfiger on Friday agreed to sell itself for $1.6 billion to private equity firm Apax Partners. Apax will buy Hilfiger shares at $16.80 per share in cash, representing a 5 per cent premium over Thursday’s closing price of $16.

Tommy Hilfiger, founder, will continue as principal designer after completion of the deal which is slated for the spring. David Dyer, chief executive, will step down and be replaced by Fred Gehring, head of Hilfiger Europe.

Hilfiger was a major brand in the late ninetees with growing popularity among teens. The brand reached its zenith when it became the favorite apparel brand of rappers and quickly became the uniform of the inner city youth with its associated “street culture”. But the star of Hilfiger faded in early 2000 when rappers started releasing their own brands. Today JayZ has his own brand, and Puff Daddy has introduced his own brand under the name of “Sean John” which gave Hilfiger a run for the money.

Yet, Hilfiger brand had a wholesale revenue of $650 million in US, with business likely to decline further in 2006. Hilfiger brand has become over exposed, and cheap. By merchandising the brand widely, Hilfiger has lost its luster. What Hilfiger needs is to connect with the street the way it did in the mid ninetees focussing on bringing back the “edge” the inner city youth seeks in the clothing they wear.

With Apax Partners investing money in Hilfiger it may be possible. But the window of opportunity is rather short.

The Chinese apparel jaggernaut continues to trounce its competitors every where. Here is an excerpt from the report put out by France Apparel Institute that suggests that China has been gaining ground in Europe despite the quotas.

In terms of market shares on EU’s import market, China got a 10.3 percent rise in the January-August period of 2005 with its share rising from 23 to 33 percent. India only gained 1 percent, by comparison. Other major suppliers outside China and India suffered a decline in market shares, especially Asian countries that together lost 7.7 percent.

India is the only country to escape unscathe, if you can call a gain of 1% “escaping unscathe”! This bodes poorly for all the developing countries that were banking on apparel exports to help their economy. More details here.