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.

Bronner Photo Album

Chews Multicultural Hair Affair Lake Charles, LA

It's Sunday night and we are at Chews Multicultural Hair Affair in Lake Charles, LA. This is our first time at this show and unless tomorrow is a lot different most likely the last. The people here are fabulous. Here is a picture of Nikita Smith with Gee Whiz. Nikita's booth was next to ours and Gee Whiz hung out with her during the show. Nikita is cold and has a drape over her shoulders. Gene was standing in front of a fan.

I've never met nicer, more polite, genuinely friendly people as the Lake Charles population. However, we are the only scissor company at the show and half our income today was from Coil Combs. We have less than 6 coil combs left so I don't know what we sell tomorrow.

Here's a picture of the crowd at Tomeka's booth as she cut with the Fishbone Shears.

Bernard Bronner stopped by to say hello. He says the ticket sales are a record for the August show.

Here is a picture of two of the stylists at the show.

We love the food in this area of the country and I have cousins aplenty down here in Louisiana. I think I ate the best Shrimp Gumbo ever last night and some out of this world Catfish the night before. The Chews show includes dinner on Sunday night and entertainment, but the line to the food was so long and the food was dwindling. We were afraid it would run out and we were tired from working the booth all day so we left. I did enjoy the comedy with Van Chew impersonating Big Bad Dee (BBD). If you don't know who he is or Gee Whiz, stay tuned. There's a TV series coming out about them in the fall on A&E.