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Press Release – Vanna White to Host Lion Brand Yarn Company Fashion Show!

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Vanna White to Host Lion Brand Yarn Company Fashion Show at the 2012 Craft & Hobby Association Winter Trade Show (CHA), the first Lion Brand fashion show to feature knitwear projects from some of the world’s top design schools New York, NY

January 17, 2012 — Lion Brand Yarn Company will be participating at the Craft & Hobby Association Winter Trade Show (CHA) in Anaheim, CA from January 29 to February 1.

For the 15th year in a row, Vanna White will be hosting the Lion Brand fashion show to be held on January 30. White has been a spokeswoman for Lion Brand yarn for 18 years, and has a signature line of yarn, Vanna’s Choice.

This year, the Lion Brand CHA fashion show will offer an extraordinary mix of eye-popping garments by emerging design talent discovered through top fashion design schools from around the world. The up-and-coming designers represented in Lion Brand’s show are from California College of Art, Parsons School of Design, FIT and Rhode Island School of Design in the U.S; Shenkar College of Engineering and Design in Israel; Aalto University in Finland; Parsons Paris in France; Buckinghamshire New University and Royal College of Art in the United Kingdom; and Kyoto University of Art and Design and Bunk Fashion College in Japan. “The young designers who worked with Lion Brand Yarn Company to create the inventive garments could be seen on any of the major runways in Paris, Milan or New York” said David Blumenthal, CEO of Lion Brand Yarn Company. The Lion Brand design team will pair these garments with wearable, easy-to-knit and crochet garments to create a one-of-kind experience for the buyers and media attending the CHA fashion show this year.

 About Lion Brand Yarn Company: Founded in New York City, Lion Brand Yarn Company is a 133 year-old brand and America’s oldest hand-knitting yarn brand. Throughout its history, Lion Brand has been at the forefront of yarn trends while consistently providing its customers with the finest quality products at affordable prices. Visit LionBrand.com

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What’s Next for Joann?

Now that all the Joann stores have closed, a mysterious message has appeared on the company’s website:

For generations, Joann has been honored to be part of your creativity: your quilts, costumes, school projects, and handmade moments of love. It has been our joy to serve markers and dreamers across the country.

We’re stitching up something new behind the scenes and we can’t wait to share what’s next.

Stay tuned for exciting news about the future of Joann.

To quickly recap, Joann filed for bankruptcy in January for the second time in less than a year. In February, in the hope of making the company more attractive to potential buyers, it petitioned the court for permission to close about 500 of its 800 stores. The company was put up for auction, with Gordon Brothers set to buy the company, sell its assets and close all the stores if no other buyer materialized.

In the end the winning bidder was GA Group, but the result was the same: all stores were to be closed by the end of May if not sooner.

Once store closure sales started the company quickly stopped selling on its website, and now all that remains is this jpeg image hinting at new ventures.

I’m sure there will be a tone of speculation in the coming days and weeks (or as long as it takes for them to announce the meaning of the message) as to what sorts of plans Joann could be cooking up.

My theory based on nothing but my gut is that they will transition to an online only storefront, probably with much reduced inventory, sort of like Herrschners (which had previously announced that it will be carrying Big Twist yarn, the beloved private label yarn brand sold at Joann). I also think they will use whatever retail sales they do to support CreativeBug, the digital learning platform that Joann purchased in 2017. That could mean producing kits for projects that already have classes, or developing classes based on products they want to sell, or both.

As of this writing the CreativeBug website seems to still be functional and there’s a full slate of new classes planned for June. I’ve got my eye on both the Joann website and the Joann restructuring website and will let you know as soon as I see changes.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear your speculation as to what the next chapter might be for Joann.