V. THE EUROPEAN UNION ORDEAL

The term modern is more often replaced by post-modern. This means that there is a change in the criteria of elegance, style, beauty, in the way and culture of clothing. The casual style (everyday sports and comfortable clothing) and the street style (clothing with elements from the street fashion) are powerfully bursting in. The fashion cycle is extremely compressed, which means that the rate of changing the style of clothing is not measured by seasons or months, but by weeks or days. Giants, such as Zara manage to adapt to this quick rhythm and offer new and new silhouettes and forms, however this is really a serious problem for the other fashion houses and companies. As a whole, the Bulgarian fashion (with some exceptions) is on the right way and it is rapidly getting younger and more versatile.

The status of the fashion design, and especially of the fashion business in Bulgaria, is dynamic and controversial. There are still serious shortcomings in the sphere of organization of production, management and especially the marketing and advertising. Many Bulgarian designers and merchants of clothes lack presentation and advertising culture. They underestimate the role of media and communications, do not care for public relations and just because of this they will face soon serious crises and problems. We would like to give once more the example of the Rousse experience with the activities of companies such as Markam, Estel Collection, Bordo, Magik, Aura, Dounavska Koprina (Danubian Silk), Mod Mari, Gruncharov and Son, Arda, Ariston, who really work in compliance with European criteria. An argument in favour of the optimism regarding the development of the Bulgarian fashion and fashion business is also the activity of Miro’, Kwiat, Virginia Atelier, Tani, Roshavata Garga (Tousled Crow), Jeni Style, Irida, Astella, Denyl, Agressia, Max Danieli, Monteli, Parushev, Etere, etc. (We are not ranking them by importance or size.) An additional argument to the positive expectations for future success of the Bulgarian fashion is also the successfully carried out in October 2006 BGate Balkan Gate Apparel and Textile Exhiition, organized by BAATPE. We will remind that 120 Bulgarian companies showed their latest proposals at the Inter Expo Centre, and Prof. Rene Mardela, Director of the Higher Institute of Fashion in Paris was a guest of honour to the event. Fashion houses Etere, Mir, Markam, New Style, Magik and Bruneli took part in the collective fashion show. The further progress of design and production of apparel and textile in Bulgaria is obviously related to high professional organization and carrying out of such exhibitions. The consolidation and the unity of the Bulgarian companies from the light industry and from the textile and clothing sector in particular, is an exclusive factor for our survival and for our prosperity in international fashion markets.

In future, the Academy for Fashion will continue to follow its high and noble ambitions for further support of the development of Bulgarian fashion and fashion entrepreneurship, consolidation of journalists writing on fashion and fashion design, organization of educational and re-qualification courses and paying more attention to the young generations of fashion designers. For example, last year the summer training seminar for multimedia training and qualification on Fashion Business, Market and Media, organized for the first time by the Academy for Fashion, concluded successfully. The training was carried out in the conference hall of Vitosha Park Hotel. The lectures were related to some of the most important and urgent issues of fashion business, entrepreneurship, marketing and advertising in the field of fashion design. The fashion as art and business, plagiarism and copyright protection, forged goods, the world trends in contemporary fashion, the establishment of own brand and management of trade outlets, the emphases of fashion and advertising photography, laugh therapy and fashion business, as well as many other topics were the main focus of the lectures delivered by the invited specialists. They included Donka Ganeva (Academy for Fashion), Assoc. Prof. Lubomir Stoykov, Ph.D. (Academy for Fashion), Pavel Kurlev (Federation of Consumers in Bulgaria), Prof. Ivan Slavov, Ph.D., Assoc. Prof. Tsvetan Koulevski, Ph.D. (University of National and World Economy), Hristo Hristozov (National Academy of Art and St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia), Alexander Nishkov, etc.

Great transformations, related to the European Union criteria for quality and high technologies in creating clothes and accessories are expecting us and we have to make all possible things to meet these requirements. One of the most often asked questions today is whether the Bulgarian fashion houses and designers would survive facing these high requirements. How would they cope with the new competition? Will they be able to contribute in a worthy way to the quality development of the European and world fashion? How would they cope under the new, even more complicated production, technological and market conditions? It actually concerns survival and adaptation to new criteria - criteria about technology, quality and market. The ones who invest cleverly in the talented fashion designers, experience market experts and high technology design will survive. In this respect, the companies from Rousse, united in their branch union, are leading, as many of them have been working on these criteria for a long time. According to us, only the ones who observe the rules of this branch, who act in a flexible way and count on serious studies - economic, marketing, sociological, would survive. We shall take the liberty to make a recommendation: pay more attention and allocate more financial resources to public relations and building of a positive image. Think about your advertising and presentation culture, as without it you will lose competition battles. And they are yet to flare up!