Christian Gregersen, CEO Gallery Int. Fashion Fair Cph

In only six years Gallery has grown into one of Europe’s

leading fashion fairs. An amazing achievement considering that the fair emerged spontaneously from a PR showroom. CEO Christian Gregersen: "I’m originally a journalist and owner of a PR agency and I never consciously held the ambition to establish a fashion fair. Gallery ‘grew spontaneously’ and that’s probably why it is so successful….”

From show room to the fair floor
Christian Gregersen is – as well as Gallery’s CEO – the owner of a successful PR agency in the Danish capital, Copenhagen. His portfolio includes a number of high-performance Scandinavian fashion brands and 7 years ago when a number of them asked if they could use his showroom during the Copenhagen Fashion Week he enthusiastically agreed. Not knowing that this would be the beginning of probably the most important fashion fair in Scandinavia. The ‘mini fair’ proved to be such a success that the following year 35 brands approached Christian for exposure during the Fashion Week. Gregersen started looking for a new location and eventually expanded into a fully-fledged exhibition hall. It was only half full but that was a decision made consciously at the time.

Gregersen: "When I decided to continue with the fair, I made the deal with myself that I didn’t only want to fill m2. I wanted to establish something lasting and that means you have to say no every so often. That is why during Gallery’s first editions the fair floor was only half full, even though I had a considerable number of brands on a waiting list. Happily this has worked out well, because nowadays we have all leading Scandinavian brands under one roof. That is in itself unique because the Scandinavian fashion world is a private and competitive market where everyone knows each other and where competition is enormous. In recent years about 100 high-performance International brands have been added that perfectly match our supply. Besides which, we select brands not on their collections but on their wholesale profile. Does the brand attract buyers and if so, are these buyers suitable for our selection? That is of course difficult to measure with new brands and why every edition we provide 5 new and talented designers with the opportunity to exhibit at Gallery. If they attract buyers then they return the following edition, but that is the one and only chance they get. The waiting list is simply too long!

Winter edition 2012
The next edition of Gallery is on the 2, 3 and 4 of February 2012, at the same time as 4 other fairs and the Copenhagen Fashion Week. During these days the Danish capital will be entirely devoted to fashion, but the City is also growing day by day on a culinary level. That is probably the reason why Gregersen regularly compares his fair floor to a banquet. Gregersen: "Gallery is one big banquet, everyone brings a dish to the table and we eat with as many people as possible. Adding all the ingredients together it results in a fantastic meal.” Gregersen’s expectations for the coming edition can be explained briefly: "Gallery has the strongest selection of brands ever and there are lots of things to see and do during the fair, like 10 professional catwalk shows, various concerts and 3 banquets for no less than 1000 (!) people. If I was a buyer, I would certainly come!"