Building Competing Fashion Textile Fairs in Europe, 1970–2010

Abstract

Interstoff (launched in 1959 by Messe Frankfurt) and Première Vision (launched in 1972 in Lyon) became “information dissemination gathering locations” for the fashion and textile industries all over the world. The two events mobilized the fashion prediction methodology as a key tool to impose themselves as the favorite information gatekeeper for the industry. Their goal was to complement the trading of goods with the exchange of adequate and strategic information for companies that were dramatically constrained by immediate global competition and rapidly changing seasonal models. As a result the two trade fairs progressively adopted a new information-centric model and contributed to maintain Western Europe as the central location for the dissemination of fashion trends worldwide. Messe Frankfurt also pursued an alternative geographical strategy. It did this by following the global relocation of textile manufacturing and setting up fairs around the world, particularly in China, before ultimately ending the Interstoff event in Frankfurt in 1999.