Project and MRKet kick off men's market week in New York City

By

Obi Anyanwu

Published
Jan 23, 2017

UBM fashion trade shows Project and MRket opened on Monday, kicking off a week of men’s trade shows that includes Capsule, Liberty Fairs, and MAN. While Capsule, Liberty, and MAN all begin on January 24, Project and MRket got a head start on the week opening at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City on Monday.

 
The two trade shows held their first partnered show in July and featured activations such as The Tents, which housed contemporary and designer collections, and Project Sole that showcased contemporary men’s footwear. This season, the two activations return and are joined by MRket’s Vanguards Gallery featuring new and emerging designers including activewear brands that are displayed in the Move section at the center of the Gallery.
 
Project also kicked off a partnership with New York Men’s Day at The Tents. The twelve participating New York Men’s Day designers put their latest collections on display at The Tents, much like past NYMD activations at Liberty Fairs.

Liberty Fairs introduced three new show features to join its longtime activation, Freedom Hall. New feature, the General Store showcases homewares and apothecary brands such as Ace Rivington, Suavecito, Locally Grown and Ezra Arthur among others, and Liberty Presents is a series of brand presentations that allows designers to showcase their collections outside of their booth. The participating Liberty Presents brands are Zanerobe, Ksubi, Barney Cools and Rains.
 
The third new feature, Art For Africa, is a collaborative effort between Liberty Fairs, Levi’s, Schott NYC and Paddle8 that aims to help bring awareness and funds to support the 14+ Foundation in their ventures to build and operate schools and orphanages in rural areas of Africa. Levi’s and Schott donated jackets to artists who created an original piece on a denim or leather jacket, and Paddle8 will auction off the jackets, with all proceeds being donated to 14+ Foundation.
 
Capsule is launching a new activist feature as well named Poli-sci, which is inspired by the 2016 election and its aftermath. The trade show will offer a collection of special items for wholesale from partnering brands Rochambeau, Albertus Swanepoel, Assembly New York, Mr. Completely, Handvaerk among others. Proceeds from Poli-Sci will be donated to cause-focused, non-profits of each designer’s choice.

 
In addition, Capsule partnered with online publication Highsnobiety to launch “Under the Radar”, a category from the Highsnobiety Crown Awards. The four brands, The Incorporated, Manta Ops, Used Future, and Sisyphe, earned gold, silver, bronze and editor’s choice honors, respectively, from the awards and will show at New York Men’s. The four brands showed over the weekend at Capsule Paris.
 
Lastly, MAN will hold its AW17 show at Spring Studios, a new venue for the trade show. Last season, the trade show held its spring 2017 show at Artbeam in Chelsea due to the overlapping market week and men’s fashion week schedules. Longtime participants, Arpenteur, Zespa, Nanamica, Our Legacy, Larose Paris and N. Hoolywood among others are set to return with new brands.
 
Project and MRket will run through January 25, and Capsule, Liberty and MAN will be open from January 24 through January 26.