Creative Twists for the Art of Giving : Event: The California Gift Show brought out the latest in non-essential goods--from cutesy to recycled to high-tech.
What to give a June bride? What adorable present could you bestow upon your honey for his or her next birthday? For that matter, what new and unusual item could you treat yourself with?
Thousands of possibilities--from the high-tech to the cutesy (and none necessarily essential)--were laid out to tempt and entice retailers at the California Gift Show Saturday through Wednesday at the Los Angeles Convention Center. What is billed as the second largest gift show in the country (after New York) and the most important show on the West Coast, the event--open only to the trade--is an indication of what you can expect to see on store shelves in the coming weeks and months.
Example: a booth devoted to Forrest Gump watches with genuine leather straps (they hit stores next week), an entire wall display of French wire-backed ribbons, Southwestern-style cheese knives, mini desk clocks set in faux fossil chunks, popcorn in flavors such as oatmeal cookie.
“You have flat shoes?” was the only guidance we received from our gift guru/guide--that and a free bottle of spring water. There were 4,000 stalls to hit. Our major discovery was the dichotomy of offerings between the earthy, “Walton Family” sort of paraphernalia and gadgets for the Bill Gates type in your life.
Someone told us to visit the Bandelier booth to see lovely paper gifts, such as journals, made from recycled blue jeans. But no, a Bandelier rep said, the blue jeans paper products have already been discontinued. Now they make journals out of paper from recycled banana leaf.
Recycling has hit the gift world big. At Environmental Fashions, a company from Winnepeg, Canada, stadium coats and other cover-ups are made from reclaimed cotton.
“There are two billion pounds a year of textile waste going into landfills,” said Richard Hannah, who showed us a sample of textile waste. Nearby, we saw handbags, quite attractive ones, made from recycled paper twine. It had been “cut and rolled like tobacco,” we were told by the Deja Vous rep.
But Mother Nature isn’t for everyone. One gadget we admired was a waterproof case for a cellular phone. The manufacturer, Aquapac, claims that if a phone encased in one of its products falls overboard or into a pool it will float to safety.
Another possibility for the person who has everything is a talking pen. Ed Clements at Travel Tech said ballpoint pens that take voice messages are “really, really hot.”
Amazing is the sheer number and variety of picture frames, no longer merely silver or wood. We appreciated the originality of frames decorated with cinnamon bark and wheat until the rep at D. L. Rhein pointed out one affixed with freeze-dried mushrooms. Many frames are adorned with bright yellow sunflower designs.
As any gift store browser knows, sunflowers have been strong for quite a while. Some vendors say they’re finished. History. “Daisies are new,” said Craig Johnson at Sparkle Plenty, which offers daisy pins, hats with daisies, daisy picture frames (naturally) and daisy jacket clips.
“I’ve heard some mention of daisies, but I haven’t heard much strength in that,” said Holy Cambern at Studio Q. “Coming up are pansies, roses and definitely irises. It’s definitely garden, garden, garden.”
But sunflowers are still everywhere you turn at the show, garnishing cookie tins and breakfast trays, tote bags and T-shirts, aprons and flower pots, stuffed into tiny burlap sacks and shaped into welcome signs for the home.
Other items that will cozy up the homestead are looking big this year too, especially candles and soap. The trick is to come up with a new twist. Northern Lights Candles makes several that glow in the dark, even when they’re not lit. Susan Schadt Designs was showing candlesticks with hand-crocheted metallic-fiber shades. An all-natural vegetable-based soap was nothing like great-grandma used on the prairie--it was shot with metallic coloring, at En Fleur.
Many brides and grooms may be surprised to find a decorative dolphin or two among their wedding gifts this year. There are acrylic and bronze dolphins, glass dolphins, porcelain dolphins, ceramic dolphins, dolphin mobiles and even dolphin snow globes also known as snowies. “Anything dolphin pretty much sells,” confirmed Michael Simecek, buyer for Inner World, a rock ‘n’ roll store in Oceanside.
And what trend follows dolphins? Wolves, predicted one exhibitor.
