Footprints Along Fifth Avenue

Most of them came, many of them bought and just about everybody had a tough time trying to conquer last month’s New York home textiles market week.

There’s no disputing the fact that it was the best, most normal – or maybe least abnormal – and generally welcome market the industry has seen since BC (before Covid). Then again, the bar was pretty low given the overall weirdness of trying to do business during a global pandemic. On the one hand, business was about as good as it has been for most people’s business life[1]times with the surge of spending on products for homes at record levels. On the other hand, there were outrageous increased costs for just about everything you need to make textiles and a business largely executed in Hollywood Squares-style on the closest screen you could find.

So, the return to a largely in-person market event was a genuine relief. Not only were we all able to shake hands, give the occasional friendly hug and even see each other’s faces sans masks, but there was the physical experience of touching products in real time rather than virtually. If you said your new item had a terrific hand, you better not have been making it up because now we could find out in person.

But there were twin palls hanging over the New York Home Fashions Market, to be sure. First, there was the geography issue. Many showrooms were not quite where they used to be and finding your next appointment required not only the excellent HTT market directory (cheap plug, but hey, why not?) but also a compass, a Google Maps app and perhaps a Ouija board. Old habits die hard and new ones don’t come easy to all of us victims of this-is-the-way-we-did-it-last-time thinking.

More troubling was the surprising pessimism you heard once you got into serious conversations with many market attendees. As good as business has been, it appears it’s not that way now. One can make the argument that everyone is comparing 2022 to the outstanding past two years and is simply spoiled by how good the good times have been. This year will not be a repeat, but when you asked people if their numbers are still beating PC (pre-Covid) 2019 most said they are.

Nonetheless, the general weariness of dealing with cost pressures, supply chain meltdowns and trying to navigate sourcing in a world gone mad seems to have had a cumulative effect on some people. The roller coaster ride is not over.

So, it was that kind of market week in New York last month. There wasn’t a person there – at least not anybody I met – who wasn’t absolutely thrilled to be back. What’s next is another story entirely, but for now, it’s not bad at all.