Key Takeaways:
- Taking over the Las Vegas Convention Centre from 13th to 15th February, as part of the latest season of the milestone MAGIC fashion event from MMGNET (formerly Informa Fashion Markets), SOURCING at MAGIC will bring together emerging entrepreneurs, established brands, global manufacturers, and a wide spectrum of technology providers to collectively redefine sourcing and help discover solutions to the industry’s biggest challenges.
- Technology will be well-represented at the show, across dedicated exhibition and pitching space, as well as in educational sessions – covering everything from creative design and digital product creation, to ERP, sizing solutions, additive manufacturing, anti-counterfeiting tools, logistics and more.
- Presenters, including The Interline, will also be bringing the technology conversation to different stages as part of the education programme – leading discussions that focus on measuring and managing fashion’s environmental footprint, transforming design and manufacturing, and connecting the global supply chain.
The creative and commercial sparks of fashion ignite when different roles and different sets of expertise come together.
Every successful product that reaches brand and retail racks has received input from designers, technical teams, material developers, merchandising, sourcing teams, suppliers, producers, marketing professionals and more. And even the most entrepreneurial emerging designers draw on the experience of commercial and production partners to realise their visions.
And with the pace of fashion showing no sign of slowing down, getting control of those sparks – and creating the right structures and the right environments for them to happen in – has become one of the most important tasks for fashion businesses of all shapes and sizes.
This is true for both scale-ups in hyper-specific market niches and massive multinational retailers and household name mega-brands. And it’s just as true for the biggest fabric suppliers and manufacturers as it is for the most disruptive software and hardware startups. All these businesses share the universal need to communicate, collaborate, and find solutions that allow those sparks to take hold and catch – and to then translate them into products, collections, commercial relationships, and stories that are smart, sustainable, and enduring.
This critical, common need is something that the biggest fashion industry events have catered to for decades, but the recent combination of speed, sustainability, and digital transformation have further underlined the importance of events like SOURCING at MAGIC – which takes place from 13th to 15th February in Las Vegas – which are seeing record high exhibitor and visitor numbers post-pandemic.
But as well as bringing together those different companies and different stakeholders in the fashion value chain – from merchandisers to manufacturers – SOURCING at MAGIC is also welcoming an expanding roster of fashion industry personas. As well as the sourcing managers, buying teams, and executives who have flocked to the showfloors for decades, these events now draw in digital decision-makers, designers, creators, and the wide ecosystem of solution and service partners that support them.
With this growth and success, further evolution is also underway for SOURCING at MAGIC’s parent company, which oversees a portfolio of prestigious fashion events. MMGNET (pronounced “magnet”) is now the new name for Informa Markets Fashion, and aims to build a new fashion ecosystem that will better serve the company’s audience – as well as the wider fashion industry – with ongoing, year-round insights and opportunities designed to support success, responsible practices, and long-term growth.
This season, SOURCING at MAGIC will be expanding on the solution focus that grew throughout 2023, and the February 2024 event will be home to perhaps the widest-ever spectrum of those solutions, tools, and technologies.
On-site, visitors will find live demonstrations of ERP platforms, anti-counterfeiting solutions, quality management and supplier compliance software, data warehousing, size and fit technology, logistics and labour optimisation platforms, sourcing management solutions, cross-channel point of sale solutions, and forecasting insight and AI-powered design tools.
And special attention is being paid at this season’s show to digital-native ways of bringing products to life – with major presences from Optitex, who specialise in pattern-accurate 3D digital design, and Stratasys, whose ability to 3D print onto fabric can unlock new creative possibilities.
Beyond this showcase of software, hardware, and services the technology conversation will continue throughout the first half of 2024. This year, The Interline and SOURCING at MAGIC will continue to expand on the themes, the challenges, the opportunities and the solutions that will be spotlighted at the February event – with content, inspiration, and education.
To find out more, visit SOURCING at MAGIC. Or download the two-part series “Fashion Technology Foundations” – focused on Digital Product Creation and Sustainability – or explore the wildly successful DPC Report 2023, which was sponsored by the SOURCING at MAGIC team, with a foreword from President of MMGNET Group (formerly Informa Markets Fashion), Kelly Helfman.
About our partner: MMGNET is a new fashion ecosystem. Utilizing their global presence and industry knowledge, they serve diverse stakeholders with insights, opportunities, and services designed to support success and evolution. They foster innovation to reshape the industry, leveraging their reach and expertise for actionable insights and sustainability initiatives. They unite stakeholders under MMGNET for a thriving ecosystem of opportunity and responsibility, with a mission to offer actionable insights and responsible practices for sustainable, long-term growth.
