Big changes afoot in fabric arena for '05
Carole Sloan, Senior Contributing Editor -- Furniture Today, January 23, 2005
Few Januarys start out as stimulating as this one has. At both Showtime and Heimtextil, which ran virtually concurrently, big changes were afoot.
The lifting of quotas was the major one, and its full impact will not be realized for years. There are unanswered questions, such as: Can goods in this country under quota now be shipped elsewhere, or does the importer have to wait for 2005 shipments?
Then there's the debate about changing the dates of Showtime, from the January–July cycle to a December–June schedule. There are pros and cons on both sides, but it looks like the new proposed schedule is out ahead.
Moving across the ocean to Heimtextil, the new era in the world of decorative fabrics and home textiles, which began to dawn in 2000, is now in full force, with China, India, Pakistan and Turkey the major players.
And within this quartet, not all are equal in terms of potential dominance of the marketplace. All bets are on China, but not without a huge learning curve in terms of consistency in product quality, delivery and overall reliability.
Many Chinese decorative fabric mills make a wide range of products, from lightweight fabrics for windows and top-of-the-bed to heavy-duty upholstery. And those that don't yet have sewing machines plan to get them this year for cut-and-sew operations, for both the furniture and home textiles businesses, opening another frontier in the arena of quality, consistency and delivery.
Meanwhile, rumor has it that the archaic policy of the U.S. government in determining who is eligible to show in U.S. Commerce Department pavilions at Heimtex and other shows may be changing. The policy now dictates that an American pavilion exhibitor must have 51% of its product made in the United States.
This country's offshore exhibition statements under government aegis are bland, colorless and mostly not fashion-focused. Maybe that will change soon.
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