Kingpins Announces Kingpins Exchange – A New Digital Showroom Platform and Material Marketplace for the Denim Industry

NEW YORK | September 22, 2020 | With Kingpins Exchange, Kingpins Show organizers have developed a multi-purpose tool to give denim supply chain members, brands and denim buyers a centralized online sourcing hub.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has forced all industries to turn to digital solutions in lieu of in-person meetings, denim suppliers have been challenged to find online solutions for presenting their offerings to established and potential clients. And, in the vacuum created by the pandemic, denim buyers seeking to understand the developments across the market are navigating a disparate mix of online presentation software, digital showrooms, PowerPoint presentations and websites developed by their supply chain partners.

Kingpins Exchange seeks to solve these issues with:

+ A robust and flexible digital showroom platform equipped with purpose-built tools designed to give denim mills an ideal space to present their collections and engage in effective storytelling

+ A central, dynamic marketplace featuring top denim suppliers where buyers can conveniently source from in a unified environment

+ Support. Kingpins is giving Exchange the same treatment it gives to its physical shows. The leading denim supply chain event is leveraging its impressive guest list and engagement with its audience to drive traffic to Kingpins Exchange

“In this new reality we have explored bringing information and inspiration to our audience via our Kingpins24 digital events. The sourcing component was missing from these events – something that remains very necessary,” said Andrew Olah, founder of Kingpins Show. “As we spoke to our Kingpins community, we heard from mills of their challenges in selling effectively, efficiently and stylishly to their clients. From buyers we heard of the difficulties in keeping track of all the different tools, platforms and techniques supply chain members were using to market and sell their products to them. We realized the industry needed a comprehensive digital solution that served both these groups very much in the way that our physical events have historically done: by creating a central destination for denim sourcing that also functions as a beautiful and effective platform upon which denim suppliers could tell their stories and sell their products. Our solution is Kingpins Exchange – something we think of as a Kingpins Show that is available to buyers around the clock, all year long.”

The Kingpins Exchange platform will launch in late October on the Kingpins Show website.  

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About Kingpins:
The Kingpins Show is an invitation-only, boutique denim sourcing show featuring a highly-edited selection of vendors that include denim and sportswear fabric mills from the U.S., Japan, China, India, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Thailand, Spain and Mexico; wash houses; full package manufacturers; trim providers; and makers of technology, wash chemicals and business solutions. Kingpins, which launched in 2004, produces biannual shows in New York and Amsterdam, as well as annual shows in Hong Kong and China. In 2020, Kingpins launched KINGPINS24, the first online-only denim supply chain event, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
About Material Exchange: 
Founded in Stockholm, Sweden, Material Exchange works directly with the world’s leading retail apparel and footwear brands to analyse, optimise and digitise their material sourcing and development processes. The Material Exchange database is a highly secure vault containing almost 20,000 digital materials from the suppliers around the world. Material Exchange brand customers include Ariat, Wolverine Worldwide, Keen, VF, Caleres, Steve Madden, Deckers Brands and more.