Paris home show to offer new focus
By Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 5/31/2004
PARIS — A new home show will debut here in January in tandem with the winter Maison et Objet.
IWT-Expo/Interior World Trends will veer from the traditional European focus of the older Parisian show to present non-European sources and manufacturers. The inaugural show, which will take place Jan. 30 through Feb. 1, 2005, will encompass home textiles, small furniture and accessories, tableware, giftware and garden and terrace products. It is not associated with the Maison et Objet show.
"Paris is a very good place for the design community to see trends," said Geert Bottger, former head of Messe Frankfurt's textiles fairs division and now co-founder of Expo+Consulting Associates, the new show's organizer. "However, exhibitors from other countries with their own design tradition have not been in a position to exhibit in Paris, especially sources from India and China."
The show will also include producers from Africa, as well as Central and Eastern Europe.
The inaugural fair will feature about 200 exhibitors, at least 50 percent of whom will be textiles producers. The show has targeted manufacturers of "special interest" products, he said.
"We would really like to present exhibitors that have their own style, not just manufacturers who are substituting low cost on existing styles," he added.
Additional information about the show is available at www.iwt-expo.com.
