The Asociación de Creadores de Moda de España (ACME) organizes a private gathering in Barcelona with various creators, businessmen, managers and experts in the business of fashion with the aim of creating an environment for debate on the main challenges facing the sector. The meeting was moderated by Pilar Riaño, Director of Modaes.es, and Pepa Bueno, the Asociación’s Executive Director.
In the third edition of ACME’s report, “Spanish Fashion Design, in Numbers”, our fashion companies valued internationalization, digitalization and access to financing as being the main challenges they face. These were the main topics to be discussed in this panel, which has brought together 26 professionals from the fashion sector.
Modesto Lomba, ACME’S President, and the members of the Association’s Board of Directors, Núría Sardá and Juanjo Oliva, joined in this meeting with author fashion design firms such as TCN, Tous, Brain and Beast, Yolancris, Menchén Tomàs, Lebor Gabala and Maite by Lola Casademunt. These fashion brands, which have a long history, as well as emerging firms, such as Sonia Carrasco, presented their point of view on the changes that the sector is experiencing and hence, the economic difficulties that their companies face to adapt to the market’s current reality.
Historically, Catalonia has been a region of reference in the textile industry. Now, it seeks to move forward with new initiatives to increase its competitiveness, so we also enjoyed the participation of Modacc, the Catalan fashion cluster. Similarly, Muntsa Vilalta, General Director of Comerç of the Department of Business and Connectivity of Catalonia’s Generalitat, and Marta Coca, Responsible for the Fashion Area of the Consortium of Commerce, Handicrafts and Fashion of Catalonia, and responsible for organizing the 080 Barcelona trade show, contributed their opinion, from the institutional perspective, regarding the fashion sector, in constant change and growth.
New consumer habits have generated new business opportunities, as well as a genuine revolution in the purchasing processes, an aspect analysed in depth due to the contributions of reference stores in Barcelona such as the centennial Santa Eulalia and Jean Pierre Bua, and also from a company like Isieme, dedicated to the representation of fashion firms.
The digitalization and revolution of social networks have caused a huge change in the creation of trends, in how to communicate and present them to the public. A point addressed by professionals from Catalan communication agencies such as XXL or Antipodes, and ESMA, a reference company in the production of fashion shows and events.
In this new scenario, the sector has seen in internationalization the main route of business growth. The III edition of “Spanish Fashion Design, in Numbers”, revealed that more than 25% of our companies’ turnover comes from international sales. In this sense, bridal fashion is one of the fashion sector’s main engines as was showcased in this meeting by Ester María Laruccia, Director of Valmont Barcelona Bridal Week.
* More content about this meeting available in modaes.es[:]