Fashion has always played a key role in Italy’s society and lifestyle, especially as it is the birth place of designer brands including Armani, Prada and Gucci. Over time, different regions of Italy have developed their exclusive specialties. With Tuscany being renowned for its leather goods, Lake Como for its high quality silk and Biella as ‘the wool capital of the world’.
The region which has a long tradition and thriving industry in fashion is Emilia Romagna. Many of the most important manufacturing and textile districts of Made in Italy can be found right here: from the Carpi district where brands like Blumarine were born, to the shoe factories of San Mauro area, the birthplace of Giuseppe Zanotti.
Emilia Romagna is considered the top region for smart manufacturing, recording 27.6% of its total employees, with world famous clusters specialized in textile, footwear and leather goods, and easy access to foreign markets (1st Italian Region for per capita exports).The region boasts over 6,600 active companies. Which includes 300 companies producing footwear and 600 companies producing knitwear. The over 6,000 companies currently employ around 42,000 people in the region.
The fashion production chain, divided into textiles-clothing, footwear and accessories, is based on the presence of a large number of very small companies either working for third parties or on niche productions, characterised by technical and manual skills of the highest quality. At the same time, there are also some very well-known companies, belonging to world-famous designers, that have their own creation and design centers in Emilia-Romagna, as well as their production plants.
To increase international visibility of the new generation of Italian fashion brands the initiative “Italian Fashion Towards Dubai” was revealed, introducing over 30 small and medium brands to the fashion hub of Dubai over the period of two years. The project has been promoted by Unioncamere Emilia-Romagna and supported by the Regione Emilia-Romagna and the Chambers of commerce of Emilia-Romagna. The program will also continue to support additional fashion brands on the occasion of Expo 2020, where businesses will showcase their collections to global visitors.
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For this reason, The Emilia-Romagna region is the so – called “Third Italy” as one of the most prominent and prosperous textile and clothing clusters in the world.
