Show report: The word from the aisles at Autumn Fair 2026

Fashion, home, gift and garden show Autumn Fair, which now incorporates the former Pure and Moda shows but has dropped the names, was full of positivity from exhibitors on day three, 8 September. Many were especially buoyed by the new adjacency with garden and outdoor living trade show Glee, running at the NEC Birmingham from 8-10 September and therefore crossing over with Autumn Fair for its last two days, attracting an even wider audience to show their collections to. TheIndustry.fashion took to the aisles to get feedback from the frontline.

Faye Tan, founder and Creative Director, Wilderly by Mama Movement

We are an Australian brand, based in Melbourne, where it’s also four seasons in one day - so the UK weather is very familiar! Mama Movement is my original activewear brand, but we introduced Wilderly rainwear last year when we came to Autumn Fair for the first time to trial the UK market. It was initially received very well, as it also was at Spring Fair in February, so we’re back again. We’ve actually had such a great response from buyers here that we’ve set up a UK fulfilment centre and we have immediate stock ready to go.

Day three at the show has been particularly strong. I think the co-location with Glee has made a real difference. We’ve had buyers from garden centres come by, including Perrywood, which has three locations close to London.

Our collection is very bright and vibrant. All of the raincoats have art printed on them from female Australian artists. We have the licence with them and are the only ones who can work with them in the clothing category, so you won’t see the same raincoats anywhere else. They are limited-edition pieces and, what also makes them unique, is they are made from recycled plastic bottles. Every raincoat contains about 40 recycled bottles, so it’s a sustainable choice as well.

The longline raincoat is perhaps the most popular, retailing at £95. It has a two-way zip and the seams are fully taped, so it’s a proper waterproof raincoat that’s breathable. The garden centres are loving our leaf print raincoat and people have been going crazy over the electric leopard print by an artist called Kasey Rainbow. We also have kids’ raincoats and waterproof puffer jackets.

Oliver Woodyatt, Sales Director, Alice Wheeler

We are a local business from Birmingham and the business that owns Alice Wheeler, which launched seven years ago, is actually 94 years old. I’m fourth generation and my father, Paul, is the Managing Director, who has been with the company for 50 years. We now have 750 SKUs in the Alice Wheeler collection across handbags, fashion accessories and beauty cases and accessories. We do three trade shows a year and we’ve built up a solid customer base supplying just under 1,800 stores in the UK. We launched in Ireland last year, which has been a huge bonus for us, and I’ve just come back from a brand launch in Japan.

We’ve shown Alice Wheeler at Autumn Fair since we started the brand, but this year has seen a better customer bounce than we’ve ever seen before. The edit mix has helped, and we have a fantastic position at the show. We’re seeing buyers from garden centre groups and independent retailers, and I opened at least 10 new accounts here in the first two days. We’re about 50% up on last year in terms of orders written, so we’re very happy!

Our ‘Kensington’ fashion accessories range has been particularly popular, with new colours including chocolate and berry for AW26. We also have some leopard print styles, which have been a massive winner for us. Our signature handbag retails at £80, and our best-selling crossbody bag is £50. On beauty accessories, our travel cases are performing strongly.

Rishi Soni, founder and Managing Director, Urban Bliss

We were inundated this morning, and in general it’s been a very good show for us. We’ve seen quite a few repeat buyers, but we’ve seen a lot of new and unexpected faces as well, so the show has certainly been a success. We’re based in Manchester and we’ve only recently come back to exhibiting at the shows, having taken a bit of a hiatus after Covid. It’s our second year back doing it (Autumn Fair and Spring Fair) now and it’s been going from strength to strength.

We supply a very broad roster of retailers as we are quite well serviced across different product areas. We work with a lot of chain stores and marketplaces too, including Debenhams and Matalan, and we have a concession in New Look. As well as the bigger accounts, we do really well with the mid-tier retailers and the smaller independent boutiques. They are equally important. The reaction you get from the smaller independents is critical as it’s much more grassroots in terms of what’s working.

We have a particular philosophy in that we like to deliver a product that gives the impression that it’s a lot more expensive. Buyers are always surprised by the prices. For instance, we have formal coats and jackets that retail for £75-£90, and we really focus on the quality and the design aesthetic. We don’t really design for a target market as such; we design products that we absolutely love and we know will resonate with a varied customer base regardless of age.

I think fashion is now becoming quite homogenous in terms of which age group will like it. You can see a daughter, a mum and someone from an older generation wearing a similar piece. I think you see that with aspirational brands like Sandro and Reformation, but the barrier is often not the product, it’s the cost.

Our leopard print double-breasted long coat is already proving to be a winner for this season (AW26) and denim is an area we are growing. We have barrel leg, boot cut, flares and straight leg jeans, retailing between £35-£40. On the more novelty side, we also have a printed denim jacket and matching jeans for this season. Generally, we have a good idea of what’s coming through (trend-wise) and we work quite tightly to season. We also carry stock.

The key positives to take from this show have been consistent year-on-year growth and hearing positive feedback from buyers who have previously bought from us and have now returned. While continuity business is very important, it’s also been great to see buyers that are new to us saying our collection is amazing and it’s exactly what they’ve been looking for. I take a lot of pride in that as we are very product-focused as a business.

Juls Dawson, founder of Just Consultancies, showing Tretorn

We took over distribution of Tretorn for the UK and Ireland 18 months ago. We sell it from our London, Manchester and Dublin showrooms. We do have contemporary men’s and women’s collections in our portfolio, such as WoodWood, Ichi, Nobody’s Child and Woodbird, so Tretorn fits in with those. As such, we’ve kept the real fashion accounts in-house, as that’s what we do. However, as it’s also a heritage outdoor brand (founded in Helsingborg, Sweden, in 1891) and some of the retail customer base is slightly out of my usual remit, I’ve appointed some specialist agents who come from the outdoor and agricultural world to really target that side. The brand has been in the UK constantly for the past 20 years, but we’re now taking it to a wider audience.

Tretorn has specialised in making rubber products for over 130 years (including tennis balls). We’ve brought our stock range for AW26 to Autumn Fair, as well as our SS27 collection. It’s my first time at Autumn Fair as an exhibitor in 10 years. It’s opened us up to a new audience, including gift shops, interior and lifestyle stores who can see Tretorn’s rain macs working for them. We supply a few garden centres already, and we are here to meet some new ones too. This brand sits perfectly in that world next to the likes of Aigle, Holland Cooper and Hunter.

The good thing about Autumn Fair is that it’s certainly not a regional show. It’s got the pull across the whole of the British Isles and a wide variety of different types of retailers that are beyond our normal fashion reach.

We have our core Tretorn ‘Wings’ raincoat, which retails at £80 and comes in a variety of colours, as well as a fully waterproof option that’s £90. At this show, we’ve also done really well with our poncho, which retails at £55. A lot of it is unisex, but we’ve brought more of a women’s-focused product offer – such as our funnel neck trench coat style. We’ve also got some great dog-walking jackets, which are fully waterproof with taped seams and a quilted lining.

We’re really targeting the garden centres with our rubber outdoor boots that retail for £90. At the top end we also have the handmade ‘Fitgo’ hunting boots (for £270), which have a locking mechanism that can be tightened if you are going into a muddy area. Tretorn has patented the mechanism.

Tretorn was also the third brand in the world to ever do rubber sneakers, and we have the ‘Court 77’ style as worn by Bjorn Borg when he won Wimbledon. There are canvas and suede options in various colours and they’ve been selling well.

Luisa Nicks, Wholesale Sales Manager, Weird Fish

We’re based in Tewkesbury, though Weird Fish was founded in Cheltenham in 1993 with designs inspired by coastal life in Cornwall. It’s the first time we’ve shown at Autumn Fair and it’s been very positive. From today (Tuesday 8 September) we’ve really benefitted from the Glee show being next door, as it’s given us the opportunity to meet an even broader mix of buyers. We’ve met lots of independent retailers, but also department stores such as Austins (in Newton Abbot, Devon) and garden centres such as Haskins, alongside dedicated fashion buyers – including from Mountain Warehouse.

We mainly came up here for new business and that’s exactly what we’ve got. All of our orders have actually been from new accounts. We’ve only brought SS27 here and, on menswear, our shirts and polos have been popular with buyers, while printed dresses and T-shirts have been doing well on the women’s side.

Our funny unisex T-shirts, where we take the mickey out of TV shows and films and turn them into fish-related prints, have also done well, such as ‘Peaky Flounders’ instead of Peaky Blinders, and ‘Coddit’ instead of The Hobbit.

We’ve introduced a new price structure for SS27 which offers a 3x mark-up. That was another key reason for showing here and everyone is loving it because it means greater profit margins across the board.

Weird Fish now has around 44 stores in the UK, having opened a couple of new stores in Cornwall and one in Norwich this year. We’re currently trying to open between 5-10 new stores a year. Traditionally we’ve looked to market and coastal towns for new openings, but the brand is being loved by people from all over the UK now, especially those who love the outdoors and plenty of colour, so some new openings will reflect that.

Mansi Lohia, Director, House of Jamoti

This is our first time showing House of Jamoti at Autumn Fair, though we did show at Spring Fair in February and I’ve been here 10 times previously showing jewellery with my parents. It’s been a good show for us, as buyers have been liking that we offer something a bit different – especially our jacquard and print designs. We do clothing and bags, and we’ve seen strong interest and orders across the board.

We’ve got both AW26 and SS27 collections here. Our velvet and canvas mix embroidered jackets have proved popular for this autumn, with delivery available in five weeks. We have our own factory in Jaipur in India where we manufacture all our products. We also do the embroidery in-house. Our matching corduroy jackets and trousers have also been getting attention, and we are open to customising orders and producing garments in different colours if the orders are big enough.

We’ve had repeat business from buyers who placed orders with us at Spring Fair and who are happy with our price points and their sell-through, so that’s very encouraging. We’ve also seen a lot of potential new customers. The trade agreement that India now has with the UK has meant there is no duty to be paid on imports, which has smoothed things considerably and perhaps made us more appealing for UK buyers.