Pure London '14

Kensington Olympia, London, is packed to the rafters on many occasions throughout the year, but for three days in February (and again in August), there is air of style from wall to wall. Pure London is the womenswear tradeshow, pulling in buyers and executives from Fenwick, House of Fraser, ASOS, Harrods, John Lewis, and many more. Fantastic, right?

At this point, you're probably questioning why I went, after all it is a womenswear show and I am a menswear blogger who is interested in going into the menswear field... I have two answers for this. First, it was free as my university paid for travel (meaning spending hours on a coach). Second, a lot of womenswear brands offer menswear as well, especially within the accessories. Basically I will take any opportunity available to network a bit, and here's the outcome.

I didn't come away with masses, but I did gain a few contacts that I am hoping will become valuable in either the near or distant future. Naturally, I've filled this picture up with some other free stuff as a picture of three/four business cards wouldn't have been all that exciting.

I went a bit picture mad whilst I was in London, which is partially because I can look back to remember things, but mainly because I have bought a new camera (Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX1K) and I'm acting like a tourist on drugs. I am not ashamed of this. So here's a very succinct picture summary of my time at Pure...

I only talked to three companies in total, which were Nat & Nin (top left), Covert (middle left) and French Connection (middle right).

I found the bags from Nat & Nin to be absolutely beautiful. They were the first stall I came by that included a bit of menswear so I was incredibly excited already. I ended talking to the women exhibiting (presumably Nat & Nin...) and they want to develop their brand into the UK. Cue business cards! Keep an eye out for them.

From there, I tweeted BlogBranch asking where they were and it turned out that they were embarrassingly close to where I tweeted them from. Handy for my legs, not so handy for my dignity. To sum that time up, my friend Ollie and I had a cheeky picture (that you can find here).

Covert cases was next on the list, instantly impressing me with their stunning technology cases. Then I stayed around because the cases are priced at retail for about £30 for an iPad case. This is incredibly cheap compared to what I expected. The cases shown are from the C-by-Covert collection, found here.

Finally, the shoes. Oh the shoes. I'm a massive footwear lover and when I saw that there were some mens shoes at Pure, joy filled my body and mind. Especially considering how beautiful the shoes are. I started talking to the main man behind them who is working with French Connection to bring out this stunning range. French Connection have never made footwear their forté and so this collaboration has a lot of potential.

The last of the pictures is simply one from the WGSN trend forecast talk. For those of you who don't know WGSN, it stands for the Worth Global Style Network and it is at the forefront of trend forecasting. Although I wish I had watched one on menswear, it was a great insight to see the trends predicted for A/W 14/15. Many of which have applications and crossovers to menswear.

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Any day in London is good by me, and this was no exception. I can't wait for the S/S 15 Pure in August and I would recommend for anyone interested in fashion to go. It's free admission to anyone (you do have to register first) and worth a look. Overall, I can't wait to keep in contact with the people I met and see if it develops into anything. I'll keep you posted.

Cheers guys,

O&U.