When IMG pulled out of Miami Swim Week in 2015 after a 10-year run, it sent brands and buyers into a tailspin. Without a central location and schedule, attendees wore themselves out scrambling from makeshift venue to makeshift venue or threw their hands up in frustration and skipped fashion shows altogether.
After hearing enough complaints, Sam Ben-Avraham, founder of Cabana trade show and Liberty Fairs elsewhere, and Aleksandar Salé Stojanovic, founder of Funkshion, a fashion and event production company in Miami, hope to fill the hole with Magic City. Their five-day, multi-platform fashion and lifestyle fair centers on Cabana’s and Funkshion’s respective locales across Collins Avenue from each other between 21st and 22nd Streets in Miami Beach.
“By joining forces, we’re able to go to the next level of production, logistics and hospitality,” said Stojanovic, of curating fashion shows, educational trade seminars, networking parties and lifestyle activations like culinary demonstrations, concerts and volleyball games with the same scrutiny as Cabana’s vetting process to avoid oversaturation. “The idea is to improve on IMG, and the city of Miami Beach is being financially supportive. They’re 100 percent in because they recognize the potential.”
In the past few years, Funkshion has presented runway collections in a 500-person tent
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