Dubai: “White”, the biggest fashion trade show in Italy and one of the important ones globally, has chosen the four cities of Dubai, Seoul, Shanghai and Berlin to promote the trade show internationally.
“The four represent the areas in which we want to develop our trade show,” said Brenda Bellei, White’s CEO, in an interview with Gulf News.
White is a private organization and it deals with designers coming from different countries and is not limited to Italy.
“We want to build a very strong relation with the market and with the buyers,” Bellei said, noting that it is one of the growing regions in the world.
Italian apparel exports to UAE has reached 181 million euros (Dh726 million) in 2015 and are continuing to rise this year, according to Dubai-based Gianpaolo Bruni, Italian Commissioner in the UAE, Oman and Pakistan.
During the first semester of 2016, Italian clothing exports had a 1.8 per cent growth compared to the first semester of 2015, reaching 92.7 million euros, show official Italian figures.
Fashion considered an important sector of the Italian economy. With nearly 2.5 per cent of the GDP, it employs nearly 300,000 people in the 15,000 small and medium size companies, Bruni said.
“Italian designers” he said of those participating in the White trade show, “are the future Armani and Versace”.
Italian officials say that among the most popular apparel being traded with UAE are shirts, T-shirts and underwear. They are recording a noticeable growth from last year by 31 per cent . These are closely followed by leather clothes, custom-tailored clothes, mass-produced clothes and accessories. Italy is the third country, behind China and India, for clothing market share, with 2.4 per cent of the total shares, according to official Italian figures.
