Is Made in Italy sustainable?

I know right? If I hear "sustainable" one more time ...

Thing is, labeling has become the new national sport. Are you a millennial or are you not, basicbitches and their freaking avocado toast we can't take it anymore. 

"Sustainable" has been abused to the point that it lost its meaning and it has become a fad. 

Truth is: if we don't go back and resume a sustainable life, there will be no life for the children of our children. Time to take this shit seriously. 

While writing the book, it became evident (duh) that this Italian way of slow living runs at a paste that is a bit contrary to the madness we are used to, where life is a snapchat, comes and goes pouf and you are not even in it, because youa re taken by snapping the picture instead of enjoying the moment. 

#theItalianway as well as the Made in Italy brand has a series of characteristics that when followed and respected make a product the equivalent of a Chianti wine D.O.C.

Because "Made in Italy" should only mean matter-of-factly what it means, but through the years the concept has been stretched.  to the point that sometimes the Country of origin is not the same where the entire process is conducted and terminated. And that's not fair, it's confusing, misleading, inflicts turbulences in the supply chain that feed more the knock-off, fast-fashion industry. Who loses is who plays by the rules.

The Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana hosted "Crafting the Future of Fashion" ( #SUMMITCNMI2016 ) a summit in which future, sustainability and digital have been discussed. What’s the vision, plan, prospects for the future, for the new generation of designers and the established ones that, by the way, are going strong. Did you know that Pitti and Milan Fashion Week are the strongest man fashion week in the world?

Status, luxury, quality, craftsmanship, durability, heritage, Made in Italy is also fantasy, perception and traceability.

Sustainability finally came into play. Livia Firth of Eco-Age said in an empowering keynote speech: “the quality of its design and the skills of its people […] that uniquely differentiate  Italy the Brand.” Made in Italy has to protect the heritage of its unique design as well as consider protection and respect for the environment and “social justice in the supply chain”.

What’s sustainability?

According to a research conducted on 3000 Millennials and presented at the summit, it’s related to words like recycle, green, durability, innovation, transparency. Sustainable fashion is a system that survives on its own based on two pillars limited environmental impact (carbon footprint) and social responsibility.

What’s Made in Italy if not all that?

We have huge corporations and small to mid-size companies thriving to transmit the crafts from generation to generation with an eye on tradition and the other on innovation, there’s no copying and infringing intellectual property, it's all about creating, experimenting, proposing; operating machineries and techniques are learned with practice and skills mastered by watching the experts. Traceability: we know where materials come from, or it wouldn’t be Made in. And, because it’s made with love, passion, not disposable nor knocked-off clothing, at the end of the chain we choose it because we appreciate its nature, lines, design, details, we take good care of it and certainly give it at least 30 wears.

On second thoughts: Made in Italy has always been sustainable, it is that now we have to introduce the concept and the label because we are living in a fast-fashion induced world in which buying-wearing-tearing-throwing-away is a 3-month cycle.  

On simplifying, poise and sophistication: in conversation with Sabine Masi of Raison d'être

"Dear Sabine,

you have brought poetry into my world of hand-bags, better said, the raison d’être that was missing.

I have never pursued the quest for the IT bag, au contraire, always steered away, naturally and you brought me to the realization that originality is indeed one of the features of a handbag, one that which I have kept ignoring.

A purse is where a woman puts her mood of the day, secrets, her entire paraphernalia of tools that accompany her all through the day. 

One of the main traits of highly stylish people is not to be a copycat and replicate street style looks or bloggers outfits. Your bags have that quality of looking worn and distressed obtained through skilled hands of Italian artisans and they tend to be different and have a personality of their own. 

I will never look at a bag the same way, you opened the door to handbag love with that key that dangles from the purses.

Sincerely, 

Francesca"

Ok I wanted a different opening paragraph and all it kept coming to my mind was all that I wrote, in this open letter to Sabine, the creative director of Raison d’être with whom I have had the chance to have a conversation. 

Get your cup of tea and read along with me.

 

How much research and trial is there before reaching the perfect nonchalant point of understated elegance?

There’s only one research, the one to reach the harmony of the form. I’m referring to a cit. from Bruno Munari, the great Italian designer and illustrator.  

“Complicating is easy, simplifying is difficult. To complicate all one needs to do is to add, all that you want: colors, shapes, actions, decorations, people, a scenery full of things. Everybody can complicate. Only few are capable of simplifying. To simplify one must eliminate, and to eliminate one must know what to take away, like a sculptor which with a chisel shaves the shapeless stone off all that extra material which exceeds the statue that he wants to make. Eliminating instead of adding means recognizing the essence of things and communicating it in its essential core. ”

— Verbale Scritto, Bruno Munari

Was it by traveling the world that an all-Italian brand was born?

It’s always been a forever love, that passion I have always read through the eyes of the Florentine artisans when as a teen-ager I used to visit their workshops. My cousin used to take me in the ‘80s, he was the buyer for my cousin’s leather goods store. Knowing the art of hand sawing vacchetta leather and creating objects saturated with that heart-warming smell of leather.  

The bags are rigorously Made in Italy, which became its distinctive seal of approval.  Was that essential to the birth of the brand?

It’s essential, as an unmistakable imprinting, Made in Italy has a precise characteristic. The idea can begin in far away countries, but manufacturing itin Italy completes the circle.

Your bags are like Mary Poppins duffel-bag, where objects and stories live freely. They are born as hollow carriers of the mood of the day, they take the shape of one’s character or philosophy. Do you grow attached to them?

A woman unveils her personality in each purse she owns. It’s her own secret socket and God forbid someone tries to break in and snoop around. 

Your bags are like the portrait of Oscar Wilde whose painter couldn’t detach from them?

I must confess that at times it happens that I too don’t have that exact bag I need for an occasion. It’s like having them all at home, truth is I don’t have that many.

You say that ‘beauty will save the world’ because beauty is over-rated?

For each one of us beauty is different, for me beauty can be represented by vivid colors, for others simplicity can represent beauty, but for everybody good manners, being good to the others are beauty. That’s why I believe beauty will save the world.

When you design a collection or a bag, do you have a woman in mind?

She is a determined woman, positive, confident within her own skin and that brightens a room when she enters it. She’s is not fearful of dreaming, daring and leaving a mark behind. She is a woman that inspires me and transports me to create.  

Intractable means?

It’s the name of the unisex line dyed with an effect called mestizo. They are first deep dyed, dried and consequently overlayed with an ombre’ technique and finally waxed. They end up looking vintage but I chose to call it intractable .

What makes it different from Couture, the limited edition collection?

Couture is a collection reminiscent of the papier peint a line of one-of-a-kind clutches  hand-painted that can be easily be hung on the wall as a work of art.

Chic is …

Chic is distinction, taste, sophistication. Grace is chic.

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ON HOW TO BE ITALIAN

What’s Italian style in one word, or two?

Creativity

There’s a general idea that Italians are always dressed up, even when we go to the gym, you have been living in different parts of the world, what really makes the difference in an Italian woman?

 Attention to detail.

What’s an absolute no in Italian style?

White socks and monochrome.

Finally, in the book I am giving advice on how to adopt the Italian style: do you think it can be dissected and learned?

Yes, elegance is not reserved to an élite nor to a special way of being.

PERSONAL & CONFIDENTIAL

You sit on a bench in the park and … wait for the swans that come to shore at the end of the day.

Is sexy in the heel or a pair of brogues will do, if played well? Sexy is poise, so even barefoot.

Morning coffee or detox juice?  Purifying water with lemon followed by coffee with soy milk to wake up completely.

You know that summer has begun when … I am in Stromboli.

When I grow up I want to be a soprano   

The book on your nightstand is “La gaieté” by Justine Lévy, I adore reading biographies.

In conversation with Barbara Hulanicki: on Biba, swinging London and creativity as zest of life

You don't open an online business that booms into Biba, the 5-story legendary boutique symbol of the Swinging London, nor are honored with an OBE if there'snt something out of the ordinary in you and your name is not Barbara Hulanicki. 

I had the privilege of sitting one afternoon in Barbara's office in Miami Beach where she has elected to live and work. We shared coffee secrets, I listened  to fashion anecdotes as a child at story time, I absorbed every minimal detail I could from her longtime assistant/manager/so delightful I want her as my best friend Likrish. 

WARNING: it is clear I didn't want to leave and I really have exploited Barbara, I think I should apologize for not wanting to stop asking questions, shamelessly. To my defense though, believe me when I say you would have done the same.

FB - From Biba to the OBE (congratulations, from fashion illustration to interior design, from exhibiting your own works to working with such visionaires as Elio Fiorucci, Chris Blackwell and the Estefan’s, you are a pedigreed living icon. What’s your secret weapon?

BH - I have to move forward. I love to learn what makes men with a vision tick. They have this direct way from going from A to Z without any distractions on the way. Women are forever life shopping. I find it fascinating to work through other people’s minds as I find I am so predictable to myself and I do find that boring.

FB - What was the catalyst that brought you from a small mail-in order business with the dream of just selling your creations to becoming the designer that defined an era in a 5-story department store in the center of London?

BH - I was so lucky to marry a man who one of the A to Z people and he guided me. When I got into a fluster he always pointed me back in the right direction. He never crossed over on the creative side and believed that my ideas were always right. Everyone needs a mate of that caliber.

“I find it fascinating to work through other people’s minds as I find I am so predictable to myself, and i find that boring ”

— Barbara Hulanicki OBE

FB - The use of the word icon and iconic has been inflated lately, for the sake of labeling everything and everyone: the IT bag, the Icon XXX Award, the IT girl and the thumbs up Emoji. Biba’s success was fruit of a lot of efforts but organic, it happened because it was the truer than true expression of that generation and those years. Did you know you were an icon and felt the pressure of living up to the expectations or enjoyed the freedom of self-expression?  

BH - I never wanted the business to have my name so would not have to be upfront. It is a full-time job being a celebrity. I like to be behind the spotlight as I can get on with the people watching. This is how you learn in my opinion and you have to plod on, and I am a plodder.

FB - Your artistic career evolved in time and space, in a ground-breaking expansion from London to Miami through Brazil. Do you still feel like being Biba or that is a fabulous and cherished glorious phase of your life that reflects into your current YOU?

BH - I get nostalgic about Biba as it was so friendly and genuine, today everything has become so corporate. It is almost a sin to have an individual idea. That is why I love illustrations as no one can interfere with his or her ideas when you are working.

“I like to be behind the spotlight as i can get on with the people watching”

— B.H. on being an icon

FB – This year marks the 40th anniversary of Giorgio Armani, whose legacy is a forever mark of the Made in Italy, I see some similarity with the Biba look, which by the way, would be much older! I am not being flirtatious just because I am in front of one of my idols whom I have mentioned in my University graduation thesis decades ago, I am referring in specific to the gamine look, tweeds, three-piece suit, floppy wide brimmed hats, wing-tips: am I so off line?

BH - Yes, Biba is fifty years old. The strength of Biba was it was for wardrobe and lifestyle, for the daily working girls. Biba was not designed for fashion shows, or untouchable girls wearing untouchable clothes with exotic backdrops. In Biba, the backdrop was the shop itself. 

ON HOW TO BE ITALIAN

FB - Can Italian style be confined in a one-word definition? And, if so, which one would the word be?

BH - Very solid and beautiful and it always looks good in your closet. The clothes are for very organized women, with no flash.

·

FB - Are you of the advice that you can adopt a look, do you think one can learn how to be Italian?

BH - Yes, why not? Your won idea of Italian might be great fun!

·        

FB - You have been an innovator, a pioneer and collaborated with Elio Fiorucci, a staple of a specific moment in the history of the Made in Italy. Do you think the ‘Made in Italy’ still holds its crown?

BH - It will always hold the crown because of the years of beautiful manufacturing. That simply doesn’t go away.

FB - Fashion and trends are two opposite pulling forces: right or wrong? Which to follow?

BH - Trends are you mad moments, usually a mistake for YOU.

FB - The democratization of luxury brought more style in the streets or, contradictorily, confined it on the runway?

BH - There has to be a snobbery in fashion, It is the unattainable for most women who want just one extremely expensive piece. You have to have the right kind of friends.

FB - With years as an Italian expat, I came to conclude that Italian style is that harmonious mix of culture, art, design, creativity, passion and conviviality. What’s the element that comes before anything else according to you?

BH - Mostly creativity. That is the most important.

PERSONAL & CONFIDENTIAL

• Morning tea or coffee?  Coffee
• When I grow up I want to be:  A film set designer
• If you had a chance to live in another decade which one would that be?  The 1930’s
• I never travel without  My dark glasses
• The book on my nightstand  too many to name, and mostly half read.