Now in its third year in New York, the Capsule trade show for independent menswear designers returned to the Angel Orensanz Foundation earlier this week and expanded to the Puck Building to house a record 130 vendor booths.
Designers such as Gilded Age, Naked & Famous Denim, and Opening Ceremony saw a stream of more than 1,000 buyers, retailers, and fashion journalists throughout the show's two-day run on Monday and Tuesday.
Created and produced by fashion consultancy BPMW, the show has filled what its founders saw as a gap in the world of fashion trade shows. "When I was a fashion editor, we all knew what we liked and what we didn't about the trade shows," said BPMW owner Edina Sultanik. "They were either too big or two mainstream, so when we started working with emerging designers, we felt we had to start our own show."
The industry response to the show has been substantial. Over the past two years, BPMW limited its New York version of Capsule to who could fit inside the Angel Orensanz Foundation—about 75 vendors—and kept a waiting list for the dozens of brands eager to join the show.
The addition of the Puck Building allowed for another 55 vendors this year, spread across more than 10,000 square feet. Guidebooks handed out at each venue indicated where vendors were located, and a shuttle bus took guests from door to door if they weren't up for the six block walk.
Capsule's growth hasn't been limited to the square footage of the show floor either. It partnered with shopping Web site Superfuture.com to create a discount shopping event at 40 participating boutiques around the Lower East Side and NoLIta. "A lot of the guests who come to the show are from out of town," Sultanik said. "The Neighborhood Network makes it easier for them to hit the streets. It also lets us bring in the community and open that part of Capsule to the public."
Once the New York installment had cleared both venues by Wednesday morning, producers were off to Paris for this weekend's European installment. Then Capsule Las Vegas will cover 75,000 square feet of the Venetian Hotel from February 16 to 17, before it returns to New York February 22 for the first ever women's wear show at the Angel Orensanz Foundation.
