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Tim Gavin was on the front steps of the Long Beach Convention Center with a couple of friends when we rolled up for the Agenda Show on the morning of January 7, 2014. He was wearing a Filament T-shirt and telling another friend to be sure and come by the booth. “Stop by later,” he said. “It’s booth N-13.”
It likely wasn’t his plan (we didn’t even speak with him), but the industry veteran put us in an optimistic mood from the start. If Gavin were a different sort of man we’re sure he could come up with plenty of excuses to stay away from what is now the largest action fashion and skateboarding show on the West Coast. He’s done this gig before. He’s built and run extremely successful brands (DVS, Matix) and he’s seen them slip away into “reorganization.” But there he was, out front at the show with a new skate shoe brand and a head full of lessons learned the last time around.
It’s seems 2013 is the year of rebirth for many people. Paul Naude is in a similar, though much more high profile, position himself. After building the Billabong USA business up from next to nothing after licensee Bob Hurley started Hurley International in 1999, Naude saw the ship he helped sail nearly sink in heavy financial seas. After a failed attempt to buy Billabong, Naude could have taken some time to “pursue other interests,” however he was out in the Agenda Show aisles putting his considerable reputation and might behind two new brands Vissla and D’Blanc and helping action women’s fashion veterans Mandy Fry and Summer Rapp with their soon-to-launch women’s line.
Click here for our Agenda Show Photo Gallery.One brand GM we spoke to believes that the days of economic fear are over in the short term. “We’ve been growing through some pretty hard times,” he said, “And for a while it seemed like we didn’t have many new competitors coming in. But that has changed. People are starting to get back in and that means we’re going to have to work that much harder.”
Youth culture always seems to spend almost too much energy glorifying the new occasionally at the expense of brands that successfully negotiate the changing marketplace. But seeing new brands like Filament, Vissla, or ourCaste at the Agenda Show was a great reminder that regardless of what you may have heard over the past few years, the action/street fashion market is vibrantly alive and kicking. Yeah, it’s a new year and we’ve all got plans, but at the Agenda Show it seemed like most everyone is optimistic about 2014 and what it holds for their business.
