Bringing Craftsmanship Back into Fashion

The current crisis has made the customer more selective on price and quality. Italian fashion companies can seize on this opportunity, by exploiting traditional values and skills, which today need to be re-emphasized with new vigor. Much of the debate on Made in Italy fashion has been on the traceability of production, a principle which was embodied in recent legislation. But in order to give real content to the Made in Italy initiative, underlying factors of craftsmanship, innovation and taste, the factors that have made Italian fashion great, need to become more apparent and better supported.
High-end companies thus have a different role from mass-market companies. In mass fashion, the customer looks at the price and seeks emerging style trends. In high-end fashion, the customer expects high quality, in terms of creativity, touch, luscious materials, and connection to a country or landscape. Celebrating the sophisticated skills that are behind a fashion brand has recently become the communication strategy of choice for major fashion houses. "Forever now" is the claim of Gucci's advertising campaign for 2010. It highlights the role of its artisans in interpreting the quality and tradition of the fashion firm. At Gucci's Rome boutique, one can find the "Artisan Corner", a project which will soon go the world round, where the artisanal process of making purses and accessories is made visible to the clients. Gucci has recently stated that its products will continue to be made 100% in Italy, and that it will continue to invest into the craftsmen that work for the company (7,000 in Tuscany alone). At their latest fashion show, Dolce & Gabbana have joined the trend toward a higher appreciation of craftsmanship, by showing the expert female hands of a tailor making an iconic D&G jacket. But there are companies that have always put the product and the human touch at the heart of their strategy. Brunello Cucinelli and Tod's have always linked excellence of the product to excellence of the territory. Cucinelli received the 2010 Confindustria Award for Excellence as best company for territorial valorization. Cucinelli calls his employees "my 500 thinking souls." Tod's runs the biggest Western shoe factory, located in Italy, and puts the "Italian touch" at the heart of its brand philosophy. The crisis caused by the sorcerer's apprentices of finance will perhaps give a renewed role to those artisanal masters whose creations can give new shine to the Italian fashion miracle. This would be the veritable innovation in a country where the factory shopfloor and artisanal labor have never been given their due. But it's not a return to the past. Craftsmanship is today aided by technology and must find its niche within complex global chains of production and exchange. The new Made in Italy must offer value to the global customer, balancing tradition with innovation.
To do this, two major problems still need to be solved. Firstly, we must make this culture attractive to our young people. In order to attract them toward these jobs of craft and skill, we need new forms of education and training and an adequate social status for those working in them. Secondly, business ethics needs to be restored in Italian fashion. The drive for lower costs, higher flexibility, and quicker time of delivery has generated a mass of subcontractors working under conditions of dubious legality, in order to be able to survive. It would be a paradox if the Made in Italy were to based on underground labor in clandestine sweatshops.