THE NUMBERS
LINEAPELLE is the most important business experience in the sector and, in its 101 edition, will host 1,151 exhibitors from 42 countries (61.5% Italian, 38.5% foreign) occupying a total area of more than 42,000 square meters: 541 tanneries, 396 accessories/components, 164 fabrics and synthetics, 50 companies from other sectors. The degree of internationality of LINEAPELLE returns, therefore, definitely to pre-pandemic levels, confirming the international leadership of a show that has experienced, during the past weeks, two significant international previews.
The first in London, Tuesday, January 24 at the Ham Yard Hotel, where 43 exhibitors participated in a stimulating and constructive day of creative and business networking.
The second in New York, Wednesday, Feb. 1 and Thursday, Feb. 2 at the Metropolitan Pavilion, where 109 exhibitors tested the economic condition of the U.S. market, which proved to be solid and interested, partly by virtue of an increase in admissions that brought LINEAPELLE NEW YORK back to pre-pandemic atmospheres.
THE JOINT
LINEAPELLE 101 arrives in an economic phase that maintains unchanged uncertainties and complexities highlighted especially in the second half of 2022. The questions due to the problematic situation in China are matched by the substantial solidity of the other Far East markets, which show significant interest in made in Italy materials and products. The European market does not show particular brilliance, while the United States, as witnessed by the outcome of LINEAPELLE NEW YORK, remains a key destination for Italian leather, despite some indications pointing to the possibility of its slowdown. In general, in terms of production, 2022 ended with declining volumes, and 2023 did not get off to a better start, but the feeling, however, is that from the spring the trend may be reversed.
THE TRENDS
For the 2024 summer season, the LINEAPELLE Fashion Committee launches the creative mood entitled Other People's Eyes - Stories of Transformation, based on pictorial suggestions, digital hybridizations generated by Artificial Intelligence, and the centrality of the chromatic dimension, with colors that will be the real protagonists: vital, positive, almost therapeutic. The stylistic challenge will be to "appropriate the most advanced technologies and technique for the benefit of man and within nature." Wide-ranging themes of great need, to reconstruct a vision of the future that will be declined by the samples and materials that also tell the exhibitors' daily commitment to the development of increasingly circular and traceable products. All this, as usual, can be experienced firsthand in the three Trend Areas located in Halls 9, 13 and 22; it can be explored in depth during the seminars scheduled at the Fashion Theatre (Hall 13),
can be discovered in the Metaverse, where LINEAPELLE, since the last edition, has opened a permanent exhibition space.
EVENTS
On Tuesday, February 21 and Wednesday, February 22, LINEAPELLE 101 will be the stage for the exclusive fashion shows of two up-and-coming designers who will present their collections for Fall/Winter 2023/2024 AT THE FAIR. That's not all: on the occasion of LINEAPELLE 101, Lineapelle Designers Edition will return to Milan's Spazio Lineapelle (Piazza Tomasi di Lampedusa), which, during the week of Feb. 20-25, offers fashion shows, presentations and projects that enhance the quality and impeccable excellence of Italian leather. Also returning to the fair will be the Friends for Leather contest, organized by UNIC - Italian Tanneries, which involves more than 1,000 middle school students from Italian tanning districts in each edition. The students this time were invited to use leather to artistically decline the theme Leather in Our Life - New Uses of Leather in Everyday Life. The works created will be exhibited and voted at the fair and online, while the award ceremony for the winning classes will take place at Fieramilano Rho on Thursday, February 23, in the presence of all the students who participated in the initiative. LINEAPELLE 101 will also feature two in-depth seminars. On Wednesday 22, the spotlight will be on traceability, transparency and circularity in the leather supply chain. Organized by UNIC-Italian Tanneries, the meeting will host talks by WWF World Wildlife Fund, Tapestry, SDA Bocconi, Cotance, ICEC and Al Invest Verde. On Tuesday 21, on the other hand, Cotance will present Leatech, a new training project coordinated by the University of Lleida (Spain) as part of the Erasmus program that aims to create a joint master's degree in the tanning sector.
THE SYNERGIES
LINEAPELLE 101 will be held in partial conjunction with the Milan Women's Fashion shows (scheduled for Feb. 21-27) and with Micam, Mipel and TheOne scheduled at Fieramilano Rho from Feb. 19-22. LINEAPELLE 101 will also host within it the new edition of Mipel Lab, an exhibition organized by Assopellettieri and reserved for 10 top Italian leather outsourcing companies. Debuting at LINEAPELLE 101 will be the United Nations program The Ethical Fashion Initiative, whose goal is to encourage the meeting of international development, creative industries and the fashion and lifestyle sector by offering services, products and development projects for sustainability. Confirmed, finally, is the exhibition presence of the Conscious Planet - Save Soil movement, which sets itself the urgency of denouncing the global crisis due to soil degradation and activating concrete political action to counter it.
