Sixty thousand companies in Italy work in the fashion industry, around five hundred thousand people work in it, in simple terms just under 10% of the Italian population.
These are important figures in terms of the weight that the fashion sector has in the Italian economy, to which must be added the overall turnover that in 2023 reached almost 100 billion euros (according to Confindustria moda data), of which about 80% is related to exports.
These results place fashion in fifth place as an Italian industrial sector, a highly respectable achievement that then allows events such as Fashion Week in Milan to generate an induced turnover of around 80 million euros and around one million visitors.
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These are numbers that make one wonder if there are still those who identify “dressing up” as something frivolous, fun, almost a stage away from everyday life.
The first fashion show in Italy took place in 1951 in Florence at Villa Torregiani in the home of Giovanni Battista Giorgini; brands such as Sorelle Fontana or Emilio Pucci paraded and international buyers and famous editors such as Vogue or Harper Bazar were invited.
It was therefore the post-war period that saw the birth of the fashion industry, that post-war period that saw the rise of the biggest Italian companies in all sectors, that post-war period that saw Italians roll up their sleeves and try to create something with the resources at their disposal, because after all there was no other choice.
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But fashion in Italy has even older roots, due to the need to cover oneself, but not only. The need to dress in a certain way sometimes arose from the need to show one's family or nobility. In Naples, local princes and squires started tailoring precisely because they needed someone to sew custom-made clothes for them.
This is how the districts in Italy, the fashion districts, were born, those that assigned a particular production skill to a particular area. So in Tuscany they are skilled at working leather (and this is where big shoe or bag brands such as Gucci and Ferragamo are born); in Umbria they are good at using the wool of bred sheep (and thus cashmere brands such as Cucinelli or Loro Piana are born); in Como and the surrounding area they work silk, etc. etc.
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Fashion shows and trade fairs are events that allow us to show the public (and foreign buyers especially since we sell them more than 80% of our production), the achievements of more or less well-known brands. The fashion shows of luxury brands, on the other hand, have lately become real shows, shows designed to create desire, the aspiration to have a certain garment or accessory.
Whether luxury or not, the fashion sector engages around 10% of our fellow countrymen, without considering those who work in related sectors and those who see their turnover triple during Fashion Week or similar events.
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It is therefore worth paying attention to fashion and its events, both because after all, every day we wear something that has been designed or copied by one of the 500,000 fellow countrymen who work there, and because all over the world people look to Italian fashion as a source of inspiration (and to Milan for the next Fashion Week).
Illustration by Gloria Dozio - Acrimònia Studios
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