Schools must connect better to the fashion industry
The organisers of Denim Première Vision are launching a denim apparel design initiative for students, with the aim of helping new-generation designers understand how clothing manufacturers work in the real world.
Ahead of the next Denim Première Vision, which takes place in Milan, November 22 and 23, the exhibition’s organisers arranged a stimulating preview talk in the host city during Milan Fashion Week in September. This warm-up event took place on a rainy autumn afternoon at Mulino Docksmart, a former power station near the wholesale fruit market, now converted into a creative space with small designer clothing shops and an onsite denim recycling project.
Specialist denim pattern-maker, teacher and consultant Alessio Berto moderated a discussion with the creative director of the IED Milano design institute, Olivia Spinelli, designer and senior lecturer at the NABA Fine Arts Academy, Alessandro Manzi, and the managing director of heritage-focused research and training institute Valore Italia, Salvatore Amura. With the start of the new academic year in the air, the talk among these experts in fashion education quickly turned to the need for fashion schools to adapt to the real-world needs of clothing companies, especially smaller ones.
Industry reality
The view of Alessandro Manzi is that young people arrive at fashion schools “with lots of passion and talent”, but that there is a day-to-day industry reality that does not always dovetail with the dreams of these designers of the future. And Olivia Spinelli agrees, referring to the clothing manufacturers and fashion businesses with which her students have contact as “another world”. It is a world in which, according to the discussion’s moderator, Mr Berto, clothing manufacturers seem to put precision ahead of talent on the list of qualities they are looking for in new recruits.
Nevertheless, Salvatore Amura makes the point that a flow of design talent has allowed the fashion sector to become, by some calculations, the third-largest contributor to Italy’s gross domestic product and something for which the country is famous around the world. He wants fashion schools to be careful to nurture creativity as well and not to fall into the trap of “teaching principles that are obsolete”. For Olivia Spinelli, though, teaching high-level craft skills remains of great importance. Students need to “learn the method” she says, and then go off and apply their personality, their creativity and their talent to what they have been taught.
Fashion schools, like all other educational institutions, always need to take into account changes that are occurring in wider society, says NABA’s Alessandro Manzi. He adds that this has seldom been more at the forefront of teachers’ minds than now because the current cohort of students has had its experience interrupted by covid-19 and, even with the pandemic behind us, is now being affected by the war in Ukraine, by concerns about climate change and by increasing rates of inflation. “But those who work in fashion always have to stay one step ahead and anticipate what the mood of society is going to be,” he insists. “And students like it when you challenge them to work things out for themselves.”
Working order
The September Denim Première Vision get-together also devoted some of the space at the Mulino Docksmart to a small exhibition featuring plant-derived dyes from Mantua-based Officina del Colore Naturale and hand-woven fabrics from two Treviso-based companies, Stilhandmade and La Colombina. The last of these had brought, and set up for demonstration purposes, an old loom that the family that runs the business has owned for more than 100 years. One of the current directors, Carlo Colombo, found it and restored it to working order.
Mr Colombo says better connections between fashion schools and textile and apparel manufacturers will be of great importance to the ongoing success of the industry in Italy. It seems to him that there is more support for future-proofing the industry, from a talent point of view, in France than there is in Italy. “Lots of our young people don’t want to do this work now,” he says, “which is a great pity because Italy creates about 40% of the value of the global fashion industry. On its own, my home province, Treviso, has the same share as the whole of France.”
Market of tomorrow
Closing the preview event, the show manager of Denim Première Vision, Fabio Adami dalla Val, said the exhibition wanted to make a contribution to closing any gap that exists between theory (life in the fashion schools) and practice (life in the industry) by launching a new initiative. In partnership with two of the design schools, with two denim mills that he said he preferred not to name, and with supportive retail outlets, Denim Première Vision is launching a programme in which students will be invited to come up with new designs for denim apparel, with the best entries going on sale to the public. “The key will be for them to create products that will work in the real world,” Mr Adami dalla Val made clear. “This means that it is designs that will not only sell well, but will also tie in well with the way clothing factories work that will feature. In this way, we aim to help define the market of tomorrow.”
Photo: Denim Première Vision show manager, Fabio Adami dalla Val, introducing the new denim design initiative at Mulino Docksmart in Milan in September.
