FROM WHITE: MORE RESEARCH BUT DROP OF ITALIAN VISITORS

“WHITE also undergoes a decline, as well as recording the entire fashion system this June, despite our great efforts to bring the quality of foreign presences -. This is the first statement issued by Massimiliano Bizzi at the end of the last edition of the salon he founded in 2000. In fact, foreign visitors have held the levels of the last edition, the one in January 2017, where the ten thousand visitors were close, with + 18% foreign buyers, Italian ones declined by 12% compared to June 2016.

It is not easy to accurately identify the reasons for this contraction that, in honor of the truth, affects the entire system. What is perhaps supposed to restore, indeed, reset, is the whole construction of the clothing industry. “To make fashion” today seems easy, despite the disruptive economy: there are too many brands, whose quality is often questionable, too many shops, too much of everything. Fashion itself is over the top. We suddenly become creative, artisan masters or new Margiela, but the truth is that there is no need for newness, only for ability to judge. The unseen has come to nothing when the physical barriers have disappeared, and that’s good. What seems necessary is to train the eye to be aware of, to make a choice. When Miuccia Prada introduced her first collection, with a jubilee of criticisms and a few ovations in 1988, as well as when, at another time, Coco Chanel created the little black dress for all the occasions shocking the world, as that color was used only for mourning times, in both cases, a new culture of fashion was defined. But today it seems that it is not enough to invent and reinvent oneself. Not only do designers have to differentiate. Everyone, from press to buyers, should rediscover a new fashion system, perhaps going against current.

The essentiality. From the whole picture, you have to take it off, until you get to what really counts, that is right. Even when it comes to fairs like WHITE, where many continue, and it is necessary to do so, to believe. It is certainly not a drop to determine the value of this reality built in almost twenty years. But Bizzi is also urging a new cohesion between the event and the other players in the system: – I realistically hope, above all in the interests of companies, that all of us, the main players in the fashion system, can meet to undertake common strategies and make a system ( …) before other fashion capitals take over -.

Today’s time and capital seem to be going at two different speeds: the first is liquefied in infinity, the second is more concrete and present than ever in need. People no longer stop talking to creators, with companies, they pull straight, otherwise there is the press kit. And, at the level of purchasing power, you will face some trouble using silk, is too expensive and then widespread in synthetic fabrics, cheaper and more easy to have in stores. But be careful to confuse a new fashion idea with the nostalgia of the previous one, impossible to accomplish yet. It was other times, you should try to understand it instead of continuing to remember what it was. Today to clash are the desire to be realized in an industry that has deceived on this aspect – not everyone can be an entrepreneur of themselves in this environment – and a market without money, at least as far as the West side of the world. In the ’80s and’ 90s it was not so, not by chance Italian and foreign brands that are still on top of the game, are mostly arisen in that twenty years.

Showcases, new formats, such as Showroom Connection @WHITE, a bridge project – with dedicated marketing and communications assets – linking brands, showrooms and buyers so that they can view highlights at the fair and then deepen the talk in the dedicated brand site, and a development of the special areas one of which dedicated to scouting, the WOW, the International Scouting Area, which brought to the fore a group of designers such as Arrabal, Frolov, The Am Crew, Heliot Emil, Hymski, LAT, Letasca, Muet, Sobec Rebuild, Julia Seemann, are the strong points of the contemporary fashion salon based in Tortona street in Milan. So, despite the September edition being the most complete, experimental (and successful in terms of audience), the June 2017 issue has also developed compared to the previous years with new values to focus on.

So what is the right way? We’ll see. It remains certain that it will be possible to continue working by presenting important news from time to time only if companies survive and to do so, buyers, including Italian ones, are needed.

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