The coveted ‘Made in Italy’ label faces increasing scrutiny and existential challenges, from supply chain scrutiny and evolving EU regulations to climate change and threats to heritage craft. This article is part of a new series where we unpack what these pressures mean for the future, and sustainability, of luxury fashion. Read more here.
In an industrial estate not far from the Tuscan city of Pistoia, surrounded by rolling hills, lies the 116-year-old hatmaker Facopel. I visited the Gruppo Florence-owned factory in early October, a week after it inaugurated its new production hub. In the entryway, a glass case displays the last hat prototype Lee McQueen worked on with Facopel before his death, still adorned with his handwritten feedback on bright yellow post-it notes. Next to it hangs a sign: “He who works with the hands is a worker. He who works with the hands and the mind is an artisan. He who works with the hands, the mind and the heart is an artist.”
Artisanal skills — and the artistry they produce — are at the core of ‘Made in Italy’. This centuries-old know-how is what justifies Italian suppliers’ high price points, and keeps luxury brands on their client books. But today, these skills are at risk of disappearing.
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According to a recent report by Italian luxury association Altagamma and the Italian Union of Chambers of Commerce, Unioncamere, the Italian high-end fashion sector will need to hire 75,000 technical and vocational roles between 2024 and 2028 in order to meet projected demand. Based on current recruitment rates, only half of these roles will be filled. “Manufacturing talents are the most precious intangible assets for high-end Italian brands,” says Altagamma chairman Matteo Lunelli.
There are two main barriers, he says. The lack of vocation for manufacturing professions — which requires a cultural change, sustained by a wide communication campaign, aimed at families and young students. And a training system that is no longer adequate. “In short, there is a general problem of mismatch between job supply and demand; a finding that is all the more painful if we consider that unemployment in Italy in March 2024 stood at around 20 per cent,” says Lunelli.
Why Made in Italy risks losing its know-how
Inside Facopel, there are shrines to these dying crafts. On a mezzanine at the back of the factory, an archive displays the wooden moulds used to shape hats, dating back to the 1920s. There is only one man who still makes these in Italy, explains Facopel CEO Luca Galigani, and he is 93 years old, with no apprentice ready to take up the mantle if he dies.
Without intervention, Made in Italy will continue to lose the competencies that made it famous, says Attila Kiss, CEO of Italian manufacturing group Gruppo Florence.
“In each step of the supply chain, there are secrets. The best way to choose a raw material; to weave or to knot the yarn,” says Stefano Albini, president and fifth-generation family owner of Bergamo fabric producer Albini Group. “For Made in Italy to survive, we need the people in the supply chain to transmit this knowledge from generation to generation.”
In Bergamo, accessories producer ACM Dettagli di Moda is facing similar challenges. The area used to be known as a specialist district with over 50 button producers, explains co-CEO Laura Corna, but the lack of young people entering these supply chains, combined with the strain of globalisation and competing with cheaper producer countries, has taken its toll. There are plenty of young people willing to work in white-collar jobs like design and marketing, but far fewer on the production side, she says. “Everybody wants to be a designer. Nobody wants to be a maker.”
Recently, ACM bought a fleet of machines from a flailing handbag producer in central Italy. Having acquired the machines, the company couldn’t find anyone equipped to use them. “We looked for training courses, but the nearest ones are in Florence, and they last at least six months. We can’t ask our workers to move to Florence for that long,” says co-CEO Paola Corna. For other roles, it takes ACM around three years to train new employees. This is a big investment for a small company, especially when young people are more likely to flit between jobs.
Investing in education
If the aim is to attract and equip future artisans, education is a sensible place to start. At least, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni thinks so. At Salone del Mobile, or Milan Design Week, last year, Meloni introduced legislation to protect Made in Italy, built around three pillars: the “relentless fight against counterfeiting and unfair competition”, financial tools to help small and medium-sized enterprises grow in sectors of excellence, and the training and enhancement of skills. This came shortly after her plans to develop specialist Made in Italy high schools, which are already rolling out across the country, and follows Altagamma’s ‘Adopt a School’ initiative, now in its fourth year. The latter is a collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Merit, which brings together 50 brands — from Ferragamo and Loro Piana to Moncler and Gucci — to advance the country’s manufacturing skills.
Many luxury brands pre-empted this, in Italy and beyond. LVMH launched its Institute des Métiers d’Excellence in 2014 and later expanded it to the US. OTB Group’s Scuola dei Mestieri (“school of crafts”) is now fielding applications for its fourth cohort. And Kering-owned Brioni just reopened the Nazareno Fonticoli Haute Couture School for Tailoring in the Italian town of Penne, originally established in 1985.
“Traditionally, savoir faire and craft were passed from master to apprentice, and often through generations of the same families. However, this tradition has all but disappeared in Italy,” says Brioni CEO Mehdi Benabadji. “The school is also an important facet of our relationship with the local community, reinforcing Brioni’s commitment to support the Abruzzo region with employment opportunities. These initiatives stem from Brioni’s deep desire to transmit skills and values that go beyond the creation of a product; rooted in tradition, craftsmanship and slow luxury.”
Brioni has also launched several educational collaborations, he adds, investing in Altagamma’s Adopt a School programme, a training course with local industrial association Confindustria Abruzzo Medio Adriatico and a new master’s degree at the Accademia Costume e Moda, for which the brand is funding 10 scholarships.
Many of these brand-led initiatives exist to plug the gaps in more general fashion education. As the second edition of Vogue Business’s ‘Debunking the Dream’ series found last month, fashion’s star designer trope is causing a talent gap within supply chains. “More than ever, we need people who know how to make things, but students mostly want to become designers. We want to close that gap,” says Miguel García Abad, programme leader for fashion design at the Florence branch of Istituto Marangoni. This means facilitating visits to local suppliers and building an understanding of manufacturing, as well as collaborating with big-name luxury brands, adds director of education Francesca Giulia Tavanti. “We feel that we have a responsibility to connect students with other professionals and other realities of fashion, to help them understand the importance of manufacturing,” says Tavanti.
Brands aren’t the only ones investing in education; suppliers are also starting academies to preserve their know-how. In Vicenza, I visited luxury denim and sportswear manufacturer Project Officina Creativa, just a few days before its new training programme kicked off. As part of Accademia HModa (its holding company’s education arm), Project Officina Creativa recently welcomed its first cohort of 12 students (young and unemployed people, alike) for a 250-hour programme focused on cutting, sewing, ironing and quality checking. In Prato, Beste Group has its own iteration of Accademia HModa. And down the road, Gruppo Florence-owned supplier Antica Valserchio is building a new facility, complete with apartments to house staff undergoing training.
While many Made in Italy suppliers are investing heavily in technology and machinery upgrades to automate labour-intensive processes, a lot of luxury fashion is still made — or at least finished — by hand. A short drive outside of Como, silk production specialist Ratti is working to preserve its traditional screen-printing methods. Inside the factory, rows upon rows of long screen-printing tables are lit by floor-to-ceiling windows. The screens are stacked at the end of each table, ready to be meticulously overlaid by hand, one colour per screen, sometimes up to 48 screens per print, each replicated 48 times per roll of fabric.
Finding people who know how to use these screens is as fiddly as the work itself. “Most of the workers in this area are in their 50s,” says Ratti head of innovation and marketing director Tim Neckebroeck. “Normally, we have one person who is already retired, training two or three younger people.” This training is critical. “If you get it wrong, the brand doesn’t pay for mistakes, we do. So the margin for error is non-existent.”
Attracting talent
Made in Italy suppliers have many theories on why young people no longer wish to work in supply chains. Albini points to Italy’s ageing population and the decline of local specialist schools. Ercole Botto Poala, CEO of merino wool textile specialist Reda, says the digital revolution has opened up possibilities for young people, and they are no longer limited to the jobs available in the towns where they grew up, nor to in-person jobs that cannot offer remote working. Francesca Rulli, CEO of sustainability consultancy and training platform Process Factory, sums it up neatly: “It’s not sexy to work for a textile manufacturer.”
Fashion production can be a hot, loud and smelly process. In general, the Italian suppliers I visited were much cleaner and airier than others I’ve seen in the past, but some discomfort is unavoidable. At Lanificio Cangioli 1859, some workers need special ear protection for the noise, and others require eye protection for the close inspections necessary in quality control. At Beste Group’s Prato headquarters, I pass a singeing machine called the “hair burner” that burns the superficial part of the fibre, to give a smoother finish. It smells chemical, like a hair salon. These are simply the realities of manufacturing — but they don’t help attract workers with more comfortable options.
So, how do you make supply chains “sexy”? At Milan Fashion Week in September, Central Saint Martins showcased a collaborative documentary with Gruppo Florence entitled Le Mani della Moda (“The Hands of Fashion”), hoping to show the reality behind luxury fashion supply chains and make associated roles more aspirational. It’s not the first initiative of its kind. In 2021, Fendi presented its ‘Hand in Hand’ project, inviting 20 artisans (one from each region in Italy) to produce a limited-edition Baguette bag, which would then be exhibited around the world. A year later (and again in 2023), Bottega Veneta spotlighted Italian makers through its ‘Bottega for Bottegas’ campaign.
And in April 2024, OTB Group — which owns Diesel, Maison Margiela and Marni among others — concluded its docuseries about its Italian partner companies. Dubbed M.A.D.E. — Made in Italy, Made Perfectly (an acronym for manuality, artisanship, dedication and excellence), the series coincided with the 10th anniversary of OTB Group’s CASH (credito agevolato-suppliers’ help) initiative, which aims to provide concrete support to the Italian fashion supply chain. “It is my firm belief that, in fashion, 50 per cent of a product is the work of the creative director and the other 50 per cent of the skilled artisans,” said OTB Group founder Renzo Rosso in a statement at the time. “This campaign pays tribute to the unique skills of the people behind the scenes of Made in Italy, and I hope it will encourage growing numbers of young people to enter professions that make Italy great in the world.”
Chanel-owned fancy yarn producer Vimar 1991 is trying to attract talent by creating an aspirational “lifestyle” for its employees, says CEO Davide Goria. The company is hoping to meet prospective employees’ changing expectations of their careers by offering more opportunities for progression and impact, even within production roles that would ordinarily be siloed or repetitive. “We are starting to organise courses so young people can learn about the different areas before they go into production, so they have more information about the product and they can propose new ideas,” explains Goria. “The new generation thinks about life and work in a different way.”
It’s up to suppliers to make the roles more attractive, adds Claudio Taiana, president of Como-based textile company Tessitura Taiana Virgilio. “In this generation, people want to change often and experience different jobs, so the challenge is preparing the right amount of people to take over. Then, you have to show people the importance of manufacturing jobs, and make those jobs attractive.” This includes offering competitive salaries, healthcare and other benefits.
At the 4Sustainability conference in Como in October, Brunello Cucinelli CEO Riccardo Stefanelli offered another potential solution. “Traditionally, offices for white-collar workers are the nicest places,” he said. “We did the opposite. We gave those spaces to people who work with their hands, and we are investing in the companies we work with to get them to follow our example. Workers need to see the profits so their children want to carry on the work.”
For Dr Hakan Karaosman, associate professor at Cardiff University and co-founder of Fashion’s Responsible Supply Chain Hub (FReSCH), the answer is deceptively simple: you need to guarantee the dignity and safety of workers. This is something fashion has struggled with in the past and continues to struggle with in the present, from poverty wages and union-bashing to environmental damage and deforestation. “The legacy of fashion is seen as something dirty and dangerous,” he explains. “Pay is low and contracts are short term. But workers don’t just want to survive, they want to thrive. We can open all the schools we want, but if we don’t clean up the fashion industry’s reputation, we will not be able to secure future talent.”
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