Made In Italy Research Articles

Renaissance and ‘Made in Italy’: marketing Italian fashion through history (1949–1952)

Until 1950, Italian fashion did not exist: there were able tailors and creative designers, but they were known only as individuals and not as part of a wider movement that identified with a specific Italian style. Despite the existence of advanced skills, with the potential to realize an Italian fashion in its own right, there was neither a cultural identity to bind them together nor an international legitimization that would allow the new form to compete with the dominant haute couture of Paris. The revival of the Renaissance and its invention as an intangible asset was fundamental in resolving this ‘dual’ absence, and it therefore became a key factor in the international success of Italian fashion. From the 1950s to today – the period of increasing international success of the ‘Made in Italy’ label – in the rhetoric of entrepreneurs, managers and marketing experts, the Renaissance has become almost an integral part of the DNA of Italian fashion, itself at times represented as the direct descendant and legitimate heir of the excellence of Renaissance taste. This is a link, now taken for granted, for which a term has even been coined: the ‘Renaissance effect’. The fundamental argument that supports this so-called Renaissance effect is in fact that of the continuity between the craftsmanship of the Renaissance age and today's fashion houses; a continuity, however, that has been elaborated through ‘manipulations’ of history which are in part simplistic and in part distorted.

Fashion: The Cultural Economy of Made in Italy

The article examines the concept of Made in Italy in the context of the long history of Italian fashion and Italian nation building. It wishes to pose some methodological questions: it argues for a more sophisticated understanding of Made in Italy, suggesting that it must be considered in relation to the complexity of the formation of an Italian style that harks back to early modernity when a prolific literature and culture came to the fore and elaborated an Italian taste or sprezzatura that was then exported to the rest of Europe. Second, the article argues that today's Made in Italy must be examined in the context of both a multilayered identity and a plurality of fashion cities and capitals. Lastly, the article argues that, as is the case with sprezzatura, a study of Made in Italy must be attentive to how Italian style has been, over the years, translated and exported beyond the spatial confines of the nation and the temporal confines of history.

Rebranding Made in Italy: A Design-driven Reading

The article presents an overview of the Italian fashion system using an extensive case study analysis conducted by the authors in the years 2008–14, both through literature review and field research. The aim is to understand the present configuration of the Italian fashion system after the deep transformations that have occurred in the last fifteen years, both regarding the traditional Made in Italy brands, with their specific evolutionary models, and the birth of NewCos (authors’ generic definition for start-ups), with their peculiar characteristics.The main focus of case studies is clearly showing the different innovation attitudes of the companies and brands and related strategic functions with a specific interest in understanding their creative and design management processes.The article groups different brands and companies into seven clusters, which synthesize into paradigmatic features of their possible approaches, offering a design-driven reading of the contemporary Italian fashion system.

Good for Print!: The Rise of Fashion Publishing in Italy

The article presents a general overview on the role of specialist publishing in supporting the Made in Italy brand and in diffusing the brand heritage and values of Italian companies whose history and tradition concur to create the Made in Italy imaginary.Starting with a consideration of the main important elements that define the meaning of Made in Italy, the article depicts the evolution in their understanding and the consequential new positioning and identity of a certain fashion publishing—from classic company books, which aimed to celebrate the history of Italian family businesses, to more sophisticated editorial products able to narrate the heritage and the cultural complexity of brands and product collections, not only to a business public but also to a wider general audience. In this sense, the “new” specialist publishing becomes a tool to reinforce Made in Italy, by transferring contents that can enable its deep understanding, and, consequentially, to promote a more conscious consumption.The article presents some examples of the most interesting and well-known cases of this kind of publishing, highlighting their high qualitative standards as editorial outputs, not only in term of textual contents and layout but also in term of editorial approach and visual contents. So the article not only draws a deepening path about Made in Italy contemporary issues but also offers a comment on the current perspective of the fashion, or more generally design-driven, publishing sector.

Retailing Made in Italy: An Evolutionary Reading towards Emerging Paradigms

The article presents an analysis of Italian fashion retailing showing its evolution, its main characteristics, and its contemporary strengths and weaknesses.Starting from a theoretical foundation of retail design, the article depicts the main evolutionary trajectories of the Italian system in its articulation of distribution channels and the related innovative approach. This is explained with reference both to mono-brand retail chains, set up by Italian fashion companies and designer brands, which suddenly expanded onto international markets; and to local multi-brand retailers and department stores, still present over the territory. The final section of the article focuses on recent dramatic changes occurring in the retail business thanks to the digital revolution, showing specific criticality conditions but also innovative emerging cases.The evolutionary trajectories traced, peculiar formats presented, and contemporary emerging paradigms are enriched by cases analyzed by literature review, desk research, and field case study research conducted by the author over the last twelve years.

The Made in Italy "Beyond the Growth": The Food System Green Oriented

The Made in..Italy is considered as a driving force for growth and employment. It is defined as the combination of art, style, innovation, culture, landscape, traditions and ancient crafts. However, we believe that the Made in.. Italy, should take a further responsibilities to go ‘beyond the growth. Does this mean we relate to all of the determinants of well-being; consider the areas of well-being and finally adopt a holistic approach of well-being. In this work, we take care of the Italian Food System and in particular that its component that can be included within the Made in Italy and as one of its orientation green can actually allow the Food System Made in Italy to help give answers in terms of Sustainability Empowerment. Il Made in.. Italy e da molti indicato quale volano per la crescita e l’occupazione. Esso e definito come l’insieme di arte, stile, innovazione, cultura, paesaggio, tradizioni e antichi mestieri. Riteniamo pero che il Made in.. Italy, debba assumere un’ulteriore responsabilita, quella di andare oltre la crescita. Cio vuol dire rapportarsi a tutte le determinanti del benessere; considerare gli ambiti del benessere e infine adottare un approccio olistico del benessere. In questo lavoro, ci occupiamo dell’Italian Food System, in particolare di quella sua componente che, puo esser ricompresa all’interno del Made in Italy e di come un suo orientamento green possa effettivamente consentire al Food System Made in Italy di contribuire a dare risposte in termini di Sustainability Empowerment.

1950s made in Brisbane: Italian tailors and the continental suit

Abstract During the 1950s and 1960s, when the French couturiers Dior, Balenciaga, Givenchy and Chanel dominated the fashion industry, the Italian community in Brisbane, Australia, was very active in the local industry through retail, dress-making and tailoring. Australia is geographically at the margins of the developed countries and has been dependent on European trends and taste. In the 1950s, communication was based on magazines and especially newsreels and film; each ethnic group dressed as they liked and according to their custom. Moreover, ‘Made in Italy’ was not yet the prestigious concept that revolutionized ready-to-wear design from the 1970s. However, Italian tailors and demi-couturiers brought to Brisbane their trans-national sense of elegance (the Italian style) and the taste in fashion that influenced new generations in England and elsewhere in Europe from the 1950s. They brought quality and workmanship, offering excellence through the use of quality fabrics from prestigious English and Italian brands. These tailors and dress-makers also contributed towards the local industry through passing on the skills that they brought from Italy. This article is based on a project that seeks to understand the connection between fashion, history and place. The area under examination is the Valley, short for Fortitude Valley, an area adjacent to the Brisbane CBD. Fundamental to this connection between place and fashion was the presence of many Italian migrants in the area. Through archival research and oral history, the aim of this ethnographic project is to bring to the fore an untold story about the economic and aesthetic contribution of Italian migrants to Queensland. Central to the understanding of this aesthetic change is the Italian suit. This research is innovative in that it opens a new area of study in Australian fashion history, connected to the history of migrants and their identity.

The Italian Avant-Garde, 1968–1976, EP Vol. 1 edited by Catharine Rossi and Alex Coles

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsGrace Lees-MaffeiBiographyDr Grace Lees-Maffei is Reader in Design History at the University of Hertfordshire, UK, where she leads the Theorising Visual Art and Design (TVAD) research group in its work on relationships between text, narrative and image. In 2013–2014, Grace was Visiting Professor of Design History and Theory at VU University, Amsterdam, Netherlands and Visiting Professor of Design & Culture, Doctoral Program on Design, IADE-U Institute of Art Design & Enterprise, Lisbon, Portugal. She is Managing Editor of the Journal of Design History (published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Design History Society) and a member of the Advisory Board for The Poster. Grace has published widely in academic journals and her books currently in print are Design at Home: Domestic Advice Books in Britain and the USA since 1945 (Routledge, 2014); Made in Italy: Rethinking a Century of Design, co-edited with Kjetil Fallan (Bloomsbury, 2014); Writing Design: Words and Objects (Berg, 2012) and The Design History Reader, co-edited with Rebecca Houze (Berg, 2010).

‘Made in Italy? Who cares!’ Prada’s new economic geography

The fashion firm Prada is currently turning away from the idea of place-image (communicated through its ‘Made in Italy’ labels) as a source of monopoly rents. In this article, I concern myself with this and other recent changes in the firm’s profit making, monopoly rent generating, and wealth producing strategies and tactics – linked together by the need, on the part of Prada, to deal with the recent loosening of the once tight interweaving of place and production. How Prada, in the process, redefined what counts as ‘place’ in a relational manner is interesting; as is the fact that the firm has become even more sophisticated in its attempts to extract every drop of profit, monopoly rent, and wealth out of the capitalist system (via, for example, a strategy of corporate appropriation which involves not only a distinctive ‘anti-brand/anti-fashion/anti-commercial’ position but also a supposedly disinterested patronage of contemporary culture). All this has significant implications for the geography literature.

An Analysis of Chinese Acquisitions of Made in Italy Firms in the Luxury Sector

Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) from emerging economies has begun to increase significantly and has been growing at a faster pace than Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from the developed world. This research seeks to assess the impact of Chinese acquisitions and their implications for the “Made in Italy” luxury sector and its firms. This paper presents a cross-case analysis of two Chinese acquisitions in order to provide some in-depth insights into the influences and the motives driving Chinese firms to invest in the luxury Made in Italy sector, the patterns and modes of the Chinese acquisitions as well as the competitive strategies and the distinctive challenges that both investors and acquired firms have to face. From the findings, it emerges that both the investor and the acquired firm need to overcome several key challenges to be mutual benefits from the acquisition.

EVIDENCE FROM CHINESE ACQUISITIONS OF MADE IN ITALY FIRMS IN THE LUXURY SECTOR � THE ACQUISITION OF A TRADITIONAL LUXURY FIRM

Outward Foreign Direct Investments (OFDI) from emerging economies have begun to increase significantly and have been growing at a faster pace than FDI from the developed world. The research seeks to assess the impact of Chinese acquisitions and their implications for the Made in Italy luxury sector and its firms. This paper presents the preliminary results stemming from a single case study on a Chinese acquisition in order to provide some in-depth insights over the influences and the motives driving Chinese firms to invest in the luxury Made in Italy, the patterns and modes of the Chinese acquisitions as well as the competitive strategies and the distinctive challenges that both investors and acquired firms have to face. From the findings, it emerges that both the investor and the acquired firm need to overcome several key challenges if they want to mutually benefit from the acquisition.

THE ALLURE OF BRAND HERITAGE � THE CHINESE ACQUISITION OF AN ITALIAN LUXURY PEN MAKER

Outward Foreign Direct Investments (OFDI) from emerging economies have begun to increase significantly and have been growing at a faster pace than FDI from the developed world. The research seeks to assess the impact of Chinese acquisitions and their implications for the Made in Italy luxury sector and its firms. This paper presents the preliminary results stemming from a single case study on a Chinese acquisition in order to provide some in-depth insights over the influences and the motives driving Chinese firms to invest in the luxury Made in Italy, the patterns and modes of the Chinese acquisitions as well as the competitive strategies and the distinctive challenges that both investors and acquired firms have to face. From the findings, it emerges that both the investor and the acquired firm need to overcome several key challenges if they want to mutually benefit from the acquisition.

"Made In Italy" Brands in the U.S. and China: Does Country of Origin Matter?

"Made In Italy" Brands in the U.S. and China: Does Country of Origin Matter?

"Made In Italy" Brands in the U.S. and China: Does Country of Origin Matter?

"Made In Italy" Brands in the U.S. and China: Does Country of Origin Matter?

High fashion in film: Italian identity and global anxiety in Valentino: The Last Emperor and Gomorrah

Abstract The intersection between the Italian high-fashion industry and its relationship to national identity is explored in two 2008 films, Valentino: The Last Emperor (Tyrnauer, 2008) and Gomorrah (Garrone, 2008). The decline of high fashion problematizes Italy’s projection on a global stage of a national identity closely linked to its ‘Made in Italy’ brands and superiority in design. Both films conceptualize fashion as a salient cultural institution that is at the apex of pressing social, political and economic issues facing Italy as the country re-evaluates its construction of national identity. By visually exploiting the tension between the perfect exterior presentation of the fashion industry and the less appealing underlying realities, the directors challenge cinematically the boundaries between fiction and reality in identity construction at both national and global levels. The films showcase the performative creation of national symbols and in both the illusory quality of narratives of national identity emerges in the directors’ generically divergent yet topically convergent emphasis on the fiction of the constructed image.

Ellen Nerenberg, Murder Made in Italy: Homicide, Media, and Contemporary Italian Culture

<i>Ellen Nerenberg</i>, Murder Made in Italy: Homicide, Media, and Contemporary Italian Culture

Murder Made in Italy: Homicide, Media, and Contemporary Italian Culture

Murder Made in Italy: Homicide, Media, and Contemporary Italian Culture

DNA markers as a tool for genetic traceability of primary product in agri-food chains

The agri-food components of the Made in Italy are well known all over the world, therefore they may significantly contribute to the Italian economy. However, also owing to a large number of cases of improper labelling, the Italian agro-food industry faces an ever-increasing competition. For this reason, there is a decline of consumers’ confidence towards food production systems and safety controls. To prevent erroneous classification of products and to protect consumers from false instore information, it is important to develop and validate techniques that are able to detect mislabelling at any stage of the food-chain. This paper describes some examples of genetic traceability of primary products in some important plant food chains such as durum wheat, olive and tomato, based on DNA analysis both of raw material and of processed food (pasta, olive oil, and peeled tomato).

Italian industrial districts: A model of success or a weak productive system?

The present contribution focuses on two issues. The first one concerns the characteristics of industrial districts and the increasing weight of these districts in the Italian system of production. The second issue is about the competitiveness of the Italian industrial districts, if they represent a model of success or rather a weak system of production. Thus, the transformation of the industrial districts is examined and the strengths and weaknesses are highlighted. One argument that comes out of this investigation is that industrial districts are strongly influenced by institutions, territory, and also by the social and cultural environment. The second argument regards the competitiveness of this Italian industrial development model, based on SMEs, which is founded on the specialization of productions, on innovation and internationalization. The paper argues that this model, which represents the ``Made in Italy'', is still a strong and dynamic system which has shown good performances and it represents a paradigm of lasting competitiveness, even if it is restrained by many external chronic constraints.

The Dialectics of Creativity: An Application to Industrial Districts and 'Made in Italy'

The paper aims to recover the historical and conceptual roots and origins of creativity in the arts and crafts field, so to contribute to contextualizing the current debate on creative industries and territories. To this purpose, a theoretical discussion of three of the main tensions and dialectics underlying the creative process (aesthetics vs functionality; codified vs tacit knowledge; innovation vs tradition) is provided through an inter-disciplinary review of literature. The second section of the paper proposes an interpretation of these dialectics in the context of Italian industrial districts specialized in the so-called 'Made in Italy' industries, which are located across the arts/crafts and technological domains. The reflections contribute to widening the debate on topical in economic geography and innovation, such as the relationship between functional and aesthetic innovation, the channels of knowledge transmission in localized learning processes and the nature of innovation in industrial clusters-districts.