Sneakers’ time hits at the Micam. It won’t hit this coming September, but in 2019, when inside the reference fair for the footwear industry, the “PLUG-Mi. The Sneakers Culture Experience” will be launched. The initiative is, reads an official communication by the organizers, “the first appointment dedicated to the dynamic sneaker-world, for Millennials, who are the trend-setters of today and the promotors of new consumers’ habits”. Organizing the initiative is the Micam, together with Fandango Club, and it draws inspiration from “the sneaker conventions taking place across the ocean (Complexcon Los Angeles, KixFair Atlanta, ndr)” and “will combine product showcasing, games and experiences, with music events, allowing the interested-public to find new ways to live its passion for sneakers. The initiative will bring fans together and will create the conditions necessary to understand a vast social and commercial trend”. A B2C space that has become a necessity; to be able to better understand a target of consumers that made sneakers “not just a fashion trend, or a niche passion – reads a note – : 26.9 million pairs of sneakers were purchased in Italy in 2017, for a detail value of 1.245 billion euro (data from Centro Studi Confindustria Moda per Assocalzaturifici). The estimate for the global sneakers’ market is of 115.6 billion USD by 2023”. PLUG-MI is a strategic choice upgrading choice made by the fair, one that Annarita Pilotti, president of Assocalzaturifici (footwear association) describes as follows: “A constant flux of influence is exchanged between sports and shoes manufacturers: sports create the needs, challenges and opportunities that shoes’ manufacturers transform in useful shoe types, performing but fashionable. For this reason, inside MICAM, a space such as this one had to be there, to make us all reflect upon the role that sneakers have in the marketplace”.
Year 2019, sneakers conquer The Micam, which opens a PLUG-MI space to the public: The Sneakers Culture Experience
