Color crushing at the Housewares Show

by Jourdan Fairchild in


Ever wonder how magazine market editors, shop owners, and retailers learn about the newest products on the market? They attend long, exhausting fairs held in giant ballrooms all around the country each year. Just to name a few, there's the New York International Gift Fair, the National Stationery Show, the High Point Furniture Market, KBIS (The Kitchen & Bath Industry Show), and so on. Yesterday, I went with my good friend Page, who's a new editor at Brides, to the International Housewares Show here in Chicago. We chatted up PR folks and burned tons of calories walking up and down the never-ending aisles. After a few hours, our eyes got glassy and our legs felt weak. And then, something cool would pop out that felt really fresh. When Page and her fellow editors browse through her photos later, they'll start to see trends emerge. While I was more of a spectator/sidekick yesterday, I did get drawn in by the crazy amounts of color at every turn. Here's a sampling of what we spotted, most of which is new to the market this year: