Footwear Insight

THE FOOTWEAR EYE By Cara Griffin FFANY MARKET WEEK August 2-6, New York City I t will be back to business in-person this August for FFANY Market Week in New York City, according to the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America (FDRA), which merged with and assumed management of FFANY last year. The FDRA said that it had conducted a "Marketplace Working Group" in which leaders from the retail and wholesale community expressed a desire to return to a FFANY Market Week. Representatives of companies with New York showrooms indicated that their showrooms will be open to see accounts during August FFANY Market Week. The FDRA said it is also confident that re- tailers will be sending their buying teams to New York that week for a return of in person line reviews and meetings having recently conducted a survey of 24 "national" retailers with the majority responding that they were likely to or would be sending buyers to New York in August. Additionally, the FDRA team is working on a FFANY "Digital Directory of Brands" that will serve as central space for the indus- try's brands to post information about their showroom status and location as well as list contact information about their sales teams and links to digital selling tools. Footwear Show New York Expo (FSNYE), which was scheduled to take place August 3-5 at the Warwick Hotel in New York, the same time as FFANY Market Week in NYC, has reported that "momentum has not been as good as anticipated for the NYC Warwick show." With the lack of show participants, FSNYE said it did not warrant a valid FSNYE show this August, but FSNYE is offering companies the opportunity to exhibit inde- pendently if they choose, as well as offering to provide services to accommodate them. FSNYE says the feedback for its November 30-December 2, 2021 show is good. MAGIC/PROJECT August 9-11, Las Vegas I nforma Markets Fashion will return to the Las Vegas Convention Center this August with MAGIC Las Vegas and PROJECT Las Vegas, August 9-11 (as well as SOURCING at MAGIC, August 8-11). Show organizers say that brands and buyers can expect a refreshed show layout with women's, men's, and children's apparel showcased alongside footwear, accessories, home goods, and gifts "for optimized merchandising and easier show floor navigation." But what does this mean for the footwear community? We asked Jordan Rudow, VP of Events at MAGIC, what the footwear presence would be like in Vegas. Here is what she told us. "We're extremely excited to unveil our updated merchandising strategy at our August events," says Rudow. "To give a bit of background and as part of a larger refo- cused and updated business strategy, we have taken a market-led and customer-fo- cused approach to evolving how our show brands serve the industry moving forward. Offering the same com- prehensive selection of footwear categories for women, men and children, our merchan- dising strategy across all brands will focus on achieving two key objectives: providing a more streamlined shopping experience for our buyers and creating more opportu- nities for our brands to meet target retailers. As part of this evolution, footwear and acces- sories will now be merchandised alongside apparel within each of our hero brands – MAGIC, PROJECT, and COTERIE – all three of which will be more aligned than ever to Looking Ahead to August Trade Shows PREVIEW footwearinsight.com June 2021 ~ Footwear Insight • 7 As the industry heads back to in-person shows this summer, the August calendar is looking busy.

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