{"id":71372,"date":"2016-02-26T04:26:43","date_gmt":"2016-02-26T09:26:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=71372"},"modified":"2016-02-26T04:26:43","modified_gmt":"2016-02-26T09:26:43","slug":"italys-fashion-elite-resists-tendency-toward-fast-fashion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/02\/26\/italys-fashion-elite-resists-tendency-toward-fast-fashion\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy’s fashion elite resists tendency toward fast fashion"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Milan<\/a>
Milan Fashion Week.
(Photo courtesy of Vogue UK’s official Twitter account<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MILAN\u2014Behind the scenes at Milan Fashion Week, the industry’s future is shaping up to be a game of fast vs. slow fashion.<\/p>\n

Word has rippled across the Atlantic Ocean and the English Channel of a movement to speed up the fashion cycle and strut runway creations straight into store windows and consumers’ shopping bags. But that notion faces resistance in the Italian fashion system.<\/p>\n

Italy, after all, gave birth to the slow food movement in the late 1980s after the arrival of the first McDonald’s in the heart of Rome, seen as an affront to the nation’s world renowned tradition of culinary excellence. So, too, is this new interpretation of fast fashion an anathema to Italian craftsmanship.<\/p>\n

Carlo Capasa, president of Italy’s fashion chamber, said Italian fashion is driven by \u201ca spirit to create desire,\u201d whereas fast fashion is \u201cto satisfy a need.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe different between creating a desire and satisfying a need is the difference between slow fashion and fast fashion,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Not only does it take time and research to create fashion innovations\u2014both in terms of innovative designs and new techniques\u2014it takes time for the public to fully grasp them, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause if a creator is a true creative, he is proposing something that doesn’t really exist,\u201d he said, making the incubation period between presentation and sale important \u201cfor people to understand the message.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mario Boselli, the honorary chairman of Italy’s fashion chamber, views the debate as a contrast between the U.S. and U.K. business models in the fashion industry and the approach favoured by the French and Italians.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew York has always been the land of branding and marketing. We and France, we are more the area of creativity and manufacturing,\u201d Boselli said. \u201cI think the logic is different. They follow their interest, we follow ours.\u201d<\/p>\n

And what if consumers can’t wait?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world is wide and varied,\u201d Boselli replied.<\/p>\n

Designers themselves see an inherent danger in immediately gratifying the push for novelty, what Ennio Capasa, the founder of Costume National, called \u201cthe crisis of Twitter\u201d that has caused youth to quickly grow tired of things.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe risk of satisfying the market is to not spark emotions. The system becomes flat, less emotional. It does not favour us designers,\u201d said Ennio Capasa, who is also the fashion chamber president’s brother.<\/p>\n

For Fausto Puglisi, an Italian designer who first found success in the United States, the idea of shortening the cycle is wearying.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople should understand, if you make something that is about research and luxury and beauty, it needs time,\u201d Puglisi said. \u201cI don’t understand what is going to happen in the future. We can kill ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

One compromise could be to get select items straight to the consumer. In that vein, Prada has announced that two bags will be available immediately in its Milan, Paris, London and New York stores after Thursday’s preview show.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is another story,\u201d Carlo Capasa said. \u201cThis is communication. If that becomes a form of communication, this is good.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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