Round Table: "Fashion Field Forecast"

Domus Academy presents the Round Table "Creativity and Management: antagonism or sinergy?"
Wednesday the 25th of March, Triennale di Milano.

Lecturers:

Paola Acquati (Responsible Moda Nonsolomoda), Antonella Antonelli (Director Marie Claire), Antonio Berardi (Antonio Berardi), Giovanni Bonotto (Manager), Albino D'Amato (Albino),  Anna Dello Russo (Fashion Editor Vogue Giappone), Roberto D'Incau (Head Hunter Settore Fashion Luxury), Michela Gattermayer (Director Velvet), Emilio Genovesi (General Director Domus Academy), Riccardo Grassi (Studiozetamilano, Pinkmilano), Maurizio Modica e Pierfrancesco Gigliotti (Frankie Morello), Francesco Morace (President Future Concept Lab), Giulia Pessani (Director Gentlemen), Carlo Rivetti (President and CEO Sportswear Company), Giacomo Santucci (President and CEO Creative Consulting), Roberta Valentini (Penelope Store, Vice President Camera Italiana Buyer Moda).

Moderator: Antonio Mancinelli (Fashion Critic, Managing editor Marie Claire).

Introduction: Maria Grazia Mazzocchi (President Domus Academy), Barbara Trebitsch (Director Fashion Dept. Domus Academy).

How much does creativity count in the fashion system today? And above all what relation does it have with management? The most prominent figures in the sector came together to discuss the subject at the round-table conference held by Domus Academy in the Salone d’Onore of Milan Triennale.
Nowadays creative people and creativity seem to be in increasingly short supply at the companies involved in international prêt-à-porter, and yet there is no fashion designer, magazine editor or entrepreneur who does not recognize their importance. Fashion without the creativity of designers is heading for a rapid demise, but do managers really leave them free to create?
‘In a managerial structure it is necessary to support and assist creative people, not control them’. Carlo Rivetti, Chairman and Managing Director, Sportswear Company, has no doubts about it. ‘The crisis is frightening everyone, and fear paralyses. But my thinking is different: it is precisely because there is a crisis that it’s necessary to create new products and not go on offering the ones that have got us into this mess. And then don’t forget that the recession of 1975 gave us Armani and Ferré. Out of revolution, out of change, “made in Italy” was born’. ‘We have to support the few creative people that are left because they are the ones who feed the fashion system’, says Antonella Antonelli, Editor, Marie Claire. Without ideas and creativity we will be closing companies, shops and magazines. What’s more our best period was the eighties, in which managers and creative people each played their own part’. So, is this the real problem: a synthesis of the two figures? Michela Gattermayer, Editor, Velvet, argues that if each person did his or her own job better, everyone would work better. Roberto D’Incau, Head Hunter, Fashion and Luxury Sector, does not agree. ‘Today we need figures who are able to unite the two functions. What’s needed is a synthesis between them, not an antithesis. The market needs people who can work in a team, who do not have a single-sector vision, who can make different contributions on the basis of their experiences’. Creativity in fashion is fundamental, but that does not mean we can forget about the requirements of the market. Albino D’Amato, on the basis of his own experience, points out that there has been a change in people’s culture. Today’s consumer has a less refined taste and creative people, whether they like it or not, have to adapt to this. Riccardo Grassi, Owner, Studiozetamilano, Pinkmilano, stresses the need to give garments a real value again. But if, as Antonio Berardi comments, journalists at Italian fashion shows focus their attention not on the clothes, but on the people seated in the front row, then how are we going to save the fashion system from the crisis? In truth there are many things that can be done to counter the slump in this sector. We could start by looking at fashion as a great muse that needs to be kept happy, suggests Anna Del Russo, Fashion Editor, Vogue Japan. Or we could begin by looking at this crisis in a different way, as the eye of the storm with which we are going to tackle the future on the basis of new paradigms (Francesco Morace, Chairman, Future Concept Lab). As the entrepreneur Giovanni Bonotto suggests, ‘Italy could start again from its unique and much envied manufacturing sector. Count on technological innovation’. The important thing, as Roberta Valentini, Penelope Store, Vice-Chairman Italian Chamber of Fashion Buyer, says is to keep going (‘we go on’). ‘Will beauty save us?’ wonders the general manager of Domus Academy, Emilio Genovesi.