Kingpins Amsterdam is back for fourth edition

By

Olivier Guyot

Translated by
Nicola Mira

Published
Apr 14, 2017

Amsterdam is getting into denim, and is making a regular habit of it, as once again the heart of the Dutch capital will go blue-jeans crazy in mid-April. From 17th to 23rd April the city’s central shopping district will be alive with special window displays and initiatives, Denim City will open its doors and, on 21st and 22nd April, the Blueprint Festival will showcase the latest innovation and creative projects in the denim industry, while the highlight will be the Global Denim Awards ceremony.

The professional heart of this blue jeans week will be the Kingpins trade show. For the fourth year in succession, on 19th and 20th April, the US trade show organiser will bring together denim manufacturers, launderers and other denim supply chain specialists at the Westergasfabriek. The show will feature 86 exhibitors, among them Invista, Garmon, Artistic Milliners, Bossa Denim, Candiani, ITV, Cone Denim, Nexgen Packaging and YKK.

The Denim Dudes seminars will shine a spotlight on the industry trends for the Autumn/Winter 2018 season. Alvanon will showcase denim fit solutions and Invista will present its market research on consumer expectations across 5 countries. Unlike in previous editions, the Why show, focusing on labels, decorations and innovative technologies will not be held in parallel with Kingpins.

On 21st April, the Kingpins Transformers team will feature the House of Denim event, a day-long seminar/workshop reserved to industry professionals with the objective of "tackling the issue of costs in the denim supply chain." The analysis will seek to identify the points of the manufacturing chains at which the costs of implementing sustainable and ecological solutions are really prohibitive.

"How many times supply chain players have been told that their sustainable innovations and products were too expensive, and that it was impossible to incorporate them in a pair of jeans?" asked Andrew Olah, the founder of Kingpins Transformers. "We are delighted that this edition of Transformers will allow participants to become aware of where and when the price is a real hurdle or not."

The approach is designed to challenge pre-conceived ideas in this field, and to provide brands, designers, manufacturers and finishers with solutions for improving their operations.