Milano Unica: attendance comparable to last year

By

Dominique Muret

Published
Sep 14, 2015

According to the organisers, the twenty-first edition of Milano Unica, ended on Thursday September 10th in Milan, produced an altogether satisfactory result, bearing in mind the current economic situation for the Italian textile industry, which is still highly critical. 

The Milan show, dedicated to fabrics and accessories collections for Autumn-Winter 2016-17, brought together 404 exhibitors (77 of them from other European countries), compared to 410 a year earlier. In addition, there were 47 exhibitors from Japan and 10 from South Korea, as specific windows were opened onto these two countries.

Altogether the show welcomed 6,322 companies. An attendance that was comparable to that of the September 2014 edition, according to the closing press release.

In terms of Italian visitors, Milano Unica recorded a 10% decrease. But, according to the organisers, this decrease was compensated by the attendance of 706 companies at Prima MU, a session dedicated to pre-collections, held from 1st to 3rd July.  

In terms of international attendance, the show suffered a significant decline among companies coming from countries whose apparel production was strongly affected by the crisis with the Russian Federation, such as Germany (-12%), the Czech Republic (-37%) and Turkey (-29%).

However, Milano Unica benefited from the presence of other major countries, such as China (+2%) with 465 companies, the UK (+6%), South Korea (+20%) and France (+2%). 201 companies visited from the USA, unchanged from last year. 

The next Milano Unica shows are scheduled for 13 to 15 October in Shanghai for the Chinese edition, and again in Milan from 9 to 11 February 2016 to present the Spring/Summer 2017 textile collections.

This is also when the current president of the trade show, Silvio Albini, will pass on the baton to his successor, Ercole Botto Poala.