Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Report on Bronner Brothers Winter Hair Show 2009

What an exhilarating, grueling week-end. Gene and I are bushed! The Atlanta Bronner Brothers Show is at the World Congress Center and runs from 10 AM to 7PM for 3 days. It's here at home which is good, so we can sleep in our own beds. It is here at home which is bad, because we stay up late each night restocking what we sold down on the day before.
There is no show in the world like this show. Sheila Tate's class, "Cutting Cross Cultures" was packed. She was really able to demonstrate the use of the T14 Wisper Shear and the T25 Fringer Shear. We sold a lot of these shears. Then every once in a while we would get a run on one particular shear or the other like the Bonika Short Curve Shear, or the Fishbone and we would conclude someone was probably demonstrating them in a class or on stage somewhere. There were a lot of platform artists we saw at the show who use our shears. To drop a few names in alphabetical order (and I hope I don't leave a name out) Hosea Hicks, Derek J Tomeka James, Felecia Pollard, Dave Ray, Sharon Reams, Nikita Smith, Sheila Tate, Tene Taylor, Torain, and Angela Thompson who performed at our booth.
Our sales were up over last year and I think most of the vendors did at least as well as last year. Our dollar amount increase was about the dollar amount decrease at the last show (ISSE) International Salon and Spa in Long Beach. The Bronner team did a wonderful, wonderful job of bringing everyone to the show from all over the USA. Jerry Dingle did a great job spearheading that. And Mamie Bell laid out the floor plan so that there was not a bad location on the floor. I wish every show could do that. In fact the busiest aisle was the back aisle. You will see a photo where I held up the camera when caught in the traffic jam of the back aisle. Also once again Janet Wallace had a great educational lineup with some refreshing new comers as well as old favorites.
Fashion trends that I noticed as an untrained fashion observer was more colors in the hair ... the pinks and purples. Short haircuts with a clipper fade or blend in the back and a textured longer top artfully blended together were popular once again. I only saw a few faux hawks which seem to have run it's course. I saw more natural hair and some afros, too. There was more fantasy hair which I loved to see come back, because that adds fun and excitement to the show. I haven't seen so much fantasy hair since the 90's.

5 comments:

  1. Sounds like a huge sucess, but no mention of BBD?

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  2. Bronner Bros thats the Show.... Did any one read..... "From the Bowl To The Chair"... Great for that hairstylist, that just got out of hair school. Great read.

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  3. What did Sheila Tate do with them Finger Shears? I can't use them no more. Gave my index finger a big old blister.

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  4. Rondell, I'm not sure what a Finger Shear is. Could you mean the Finger Whack which is a razor? All our shears have a 30 day satisfaction guarantee and even beyond that we will take them back with a low restocking fee.

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  5. Greetings Bonnie- is there instructional video out yet for the finger whackers(I bought a couple years ago from you).

    Thanks,
    Doug

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