Interview with Ms Laura La Corte

Italy, after China, is the second world exporter of textile-apparel products. In the domestic panorama, and even in presence of new economic realities, the industry continues to account for 7.3% of the industrial value added and for 7.8% of exports of the manufacturing sector.

According to SMI – Sistema Moda Italia, the sectorial industrialists association, in 2008 the total turnover of the industry amounted to some 52.5 billion euro, with a 3.1% decrease in 2007, due mainly to the textile segment – yarns and fabrics – while garment production has substantially maintained its positions. In any case, despite the crisis, the Italian textile-apparel industry remains one of the pillars of Italian economy and of the Italian image in the world.

The appeal of Made in Italy in the world goes well beyond the fashion. But textiles and fashion are only part –an important one, but still only a part – of the Italian way of life. Not by chance, some years ago ICE – the Italian Institute for Foreign Trade, known abroad as Italian Trade Commission – created the logo “Italia - Life in I Style” to launch a campaign to promote the fashion sector in many countries: to mark and underline the specificity of the Italian way of life.

What are the components of the Italian style? History, nature, people, climate, food, art… Living in a country that owns about half of the world’s cultural and artistic heritage surely helps. Italians are born and live surrounded by beauty. So it is not surprising that the average national taste – for apparel, food, furnishing, interior design etc. – is quite good. And that is reflected in the Italian products.

The importance of textile and fashion in the Italian history may be easily seen in the major museums of the world. You can admire the portraits of great personages of Italian history, wonderfully clad in sumptuous clothes designed by stylists of their times, whose names are mostly forgotten or literally unknown – but with exceptions: Michelangelo, for instance, is credited by someone with the design of the Pope’s Swiss Guard uniforms, still in use.

In most cases – textiles and apparel products among them – the present industrial production is the modern development of centuries of skilled craftmanship. And the talents of the past still live in the present Italian industrial districts: so you find fashionable, comfortable and very up-to-date footwear in Marche, or wonderful knitwear in Umbria and Emilia-Romagna; or jewelry and goldsmithery in Piedmont, Tuscany and Veneto. And while the apparel production is scattered in many regions of Italy, there is a huge concentration of outwear, sportswear and kids’ apparel in Veneto.

To finish with the textiles: the Biella, Como, Prato and Vicenza districts – to name the most important and old ones – are very well-known by the professionals of the fashion industry in all countries as suppliers of very good fabrics, may be the best in the world. It’s a tradition that lives on. As it’s shown by a great exhibition at the Prato Textile Museum, open until January 2010, which illustrates the history of Italian and Russian art, textiles, and fashion between the 14th and the 18th century, and explains that the czars of ancient Moscovia and early Russia used Italian fabrics for their clothes.

The present world crisis has hit dramatically many Italian companies. Many were compelled to close, others have seen their sales and exports curtailed by 20, 30 and even 50 percent.

Paradoxically, however, this gloomy situation is a spur for many companies. They are compelled to improve not only their organization, but also the quality and value of their production. The strategy is to concentrate the energies on the development of the most successful and representative products of the brand, while going on with the research of new materials and new trends.

We may say that the companies must invest on their identity. And most Italian companies, in fact, think that the crisis may be seen as an opportunity to change and grow, by emphasizing the peculiarities of the Made in Italy: innovation, design, quality, service, communication, price, professionalism.

In other words, the crisis has made and is still making a sort of selection, helping the healthier and more solid companies to distinguish themselves, in order to cope with and get through the present difficulties.

The Multi Fibre Arrangement was in force for three decades, from 1974 to 2004, and has expired nearly five years ago. This means that the companies had a long time to reorganize and adapt themselves to the new foreseeable international situation, characterized by strong and growing competition of China, and other more or less developing countries.

The problem is that many companies – mainly small companies – did not prepare sufficiently, if not at all. Needless to say, those who were caught unprepared suffered and are suffering strongly the slow-down recorded by the textile and fashion sector in the last years, and finally the world financial and economic crisis of 2008. In Italy many small companies closed down, and that is causing serious problems in some textile districts, with Prato in the front line. Thousands of people, in fact, have lost their jobs and have great difficulties in finding a new one in a district specialized in textile production since the Middle Ages.

On the other hand, the crisis is an incentive for companies to review their strategies – in terms of creation, production and marketing – in order to adapt to a new world outlook and compete at their best. From this point of view, the present crisis offers a great opportunity.

In any case, it’s necessary to be aware that the boom decades are over, and that all competitors on the world stage will have to adapt themeselves to this new situation.

The global crisis of 2008 is also said to have changed, among other effects, the buying habits of the consumers, nearly at all levels. In other words, people now think twice before spending, and in any case tend to buy less. The golden age of unrestrained consumerism – if we may call it so – is over.

That means that people, even the rich and the well-to-do, will buy less. They will be more selective in terms of quality, and therefore will prefer to buy less articles, but of a better quality. If we talk in terms of quantitative growth, it’s good news for good companies, but it’s bad news for the marginal ones. I don’t deem it necessary to elaborate.

ICE - Italian Trade Commission was established in 1926. It has a long history and therefore a long experience in promoting Italian products – and the Italian image – in the world. Thanks to this tradition, ICE has also served as a model for similar organizations created by other countries in Europe and other continents.

May be such younger organizations have surpassed the master. In any case, we are proud of our history, and work day after day to improve our performance and offer the Italian companies, willing to internationalize their operations, our support and assistance practically in all parts of the world.

As for the promotion of the textile-apparel sector, it has been a traditional field of activity for ICE, and has seen a great development starting from the Seventies. Some of today’s major Italian stylists, for instance, took part in fashion shows organized by ICE in countries like the United States and Japan. It’s a tradition that ICE keeps on, and in 2005 we began to promote a new generation of stylists. Who knows? Maybe among them there are the leading stylists of the future.

Needless to say, in promoting such an important sector, ICE works in close cooperation with the Industrialists Associations, the Italian Fashion Chamber, the organizers of the Italian sectorial fairs, and also with the Regions, which often support the companies operating within their territory.

First of all, the creativity of the Italian stylists, and then the professionalism of the industry.

A new generation of fashion designers is growing and promises to keep alive and renew the prestige of the famous and older ones – Armani, Ferrè, Missoni, Valentino, Versace: to name, in alphabetical order, just some of them. As far as ICE-Italian Trade Commission is concerned, as I already mentioned, in 2005 it started to promote new Italian stylists on the Japanese market. In September 2009 a successful presentation of six new brands has been organized in Tokyo. It has been the fourth time, and we plan to renew and extend this kind of initiative in other countries.

In general terms, the Made in Italy is experiencing a great evolution. The word luxury tends to be put aside, in favour of other factors, like the price/performance ratio and a major attention to the ‘glamour day wear’, i.e. the daily elegance round-the-clock. Luxury in Italy is still important, but some sort of ethical concreteness is gaining ground, and so consumers begin to prefer and buy garments for their real value and not only, or mainly, for their label. To sum-up, Italian fashion mixes together creativity, concreteness and good taste.

Today a brand is perceived and appreciated as new and of good quality only if it is very innovative in concept, materials, and functionality. Therefore designers and industries, while maintaining their role as trend setters, have also to consider the changes in the taste of the consumers. I am confident that the Italian creativity and the professionalism of the people in the industry will help them to win the challenge.

All over the world the textiles and fashion industries are undergoing a dramatic, revolutionary change. It involves all productive segments and all countries.

I am doubtful about the concept of “mature sector” applied to the textiles. In the last decades we have seen the continuous creation of new blends, and therefore of new fabrics. Thirty, forty years ago, the panorama of fabrics was quite simple: cotton, wool, linen, silk, synthetic and artificial fibres… Now we have a lot of new fabrics, because if we join together – say – wool and linen, or cotton and wool, or silk and cotton, we obtain literally new fabrics.

From this point of view, which regards more the creativity side, the improvement and development of the industry is a daily and continuous experience. On the apparel prodution side, the development of the textiles machinery allows new – and, in some cases, totally new – ways to produce garments.

Therefore the answer to your question is positive. Of course, ICE-Italian Trade Commission is not involved in this process, but can and will assist and support the Italian companies in their efforts to promote their production in the foreign markets.

Among the main activies of ICE-Italian Trade Commission – promotion, information, assistance and training – promotion is the most important in terms of financial investment.

Within the strategical lines of the Ministry of Economic Development, ICE drafts and implements annual promotional programs, aimed at promoting the Made in Italy in the most important and/or potential markets of the world.

Besides huge trade missions, organized to promote the national industrial system as a whole - since 2004 some 26 such missions have been organized in cooperation with Confindustria (Confederation of Italian Industry) and ABI (Italian Banking Association) – ICE’s promotional programs includes specific projets dedicated to the various sectors.

As far as the textile and apparel sector is concerned, the promotional activity is grouped mainly in three projects: one for the promotion in the most important and “traditional” markets (America, Europe and Japan); another one for the BRIC countries (Brasil, India and China) and “new” markets (among them, those of Central-Eastern Europe); and finally, a third project, usually named “Progetto Moda Made in Italy”, which is aimed at the promotion of the image of the Italian fashion sector in general, irrespective of geographic restrictions.

The initiatives included in the first two projects normally entail the organization of autonomous – i.e. all-Italian – exhibitions, and the collective Italian participation at important international fairs. Architects of ICE’s technical department usually draft the project of the Italian pavilions and stands. In some cases, ICE organizes an Italian official stand, which highlights the independent presence of Italian companies in the fair and offers them assistance and services such as interpreters, fax, internet connections, etc.

Another important way to promote the Made in Italy is the organization of incoming missions of foreign journalists and businessmen to the Italian fairs of the textile-apparel sector, among them the Pitti fairs, Milano Unica, Proposte, Altaroma, Filo, etc.

One innovative and far reaching way to promote in the long term the knowledge and use of Italian fabrics is the cooperation with important foreign fashion schools. The future fashion designers – American, Japanese, British or of other countries – thus have an opportunity to begin to use and appreciate Italian fabrics for their capsule collections.

Finally, the “Progetto Moda Made in Italy” concerns the general promotion of the Italian image, and therefore is based mainly on communication campaigns on the leading media in selected countries, cooperation with small and large retailers chains, information addressed to the Italian companies about some priority markets.

Unfortunately, the funds allocated by the Government for ICE’s promotional activity are – traditionally, I would say – insufficient to finance all the initiatives that we would like to include in our projects, in order to support the companies in their efforts to open new markets, or to maintain and strengthen their positions in traditional markets. Every year, in drafting the promotional program, also in consultation with the industrialists association, we have to deal with this shortage of funds, and we are compelled to select among a long list of possible initiatives, i.e. to cut many of them. In making our choices, we think first of the interests of the companies, because ICE’s first mission is to assist and back them.

Pleasure’s mine!