During fashion week many magazines and websites focus their attention on the most superficial aspects of the industry, so that inexperienced readers end up thinking that catwalk shows could be summarised in, more or less, four words - celebrities, glamour, models and money. Yet the industry has got more layers than a mille-feuille cake, some of them unknown or simply hiding secrets that shouldn't be disclosed.
One of the most disappointing things linked with the current fashion weeks is the rise of the sponsor: some of you may have noticed how the reviews of the London shows on the online edition of Vogue UK closed with a thank you note to the main sponsor, while high profile bloggers have been posting tweets or pictures of themselves being driven around the venues in luxury vehicles offered by famous car companies. So in between journalists self-censoring themselves and writing generally bland or enthusiastic reviews to avoid not being invited to the next catwalk show or to make sure the sponsor is happy, and people who can't seem to say "no, I'm not an advertising board/I'm not your prostitute" (aftet all, advertising money pays the bills and helps you keeping a healthy wardrobe), you get the impression that the fashion industry is just a place full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing.
Milan is no difference. Though no big car sponsor has yet decided to take over and eventually turn it into a showroom for luxury cars, Milan Fashion Week is riddled with a series of problems, one of the main ones is that, while in the past Italians were the undiscussed leaders, now they are the followers. Besides, too many big names, brands and editors pretend they are supporting young talents, while they are obviously maintaining a status quo, causing the Italian fashion scene to look a bit like a ghost ship adrift in the ocean. But there is always light at the end of the tunnel and there are still entrepreneurs doing their best to change things.
One of them is young Milanese designer Federico Sangalli, who today takes over this site to write down some notes about what he hates, likes and loves about fashion. Sangalli entered the ready-to-wear market with big hopes and great tailoring skills, but, just a few years later, finding himself under too many pressures, he decided to go back to his roots and dedicate himself to the creation of made-to-measure Haute Couture fashion for his clients.
Sangalli swears that going from fast to slow helped him to recover his sanity of mind and his creativity once again. His comments and declarations are a combination of bitterness and hope: some of you may find them hard, others may discover something they do not know, but Sangalli surely offers us a unique perspective, suggesting us to rip it all up and start again from scratch, as you would do when you create a unique piece, a concept illustrated by the images in this post that show the construction of a jacket from a previous Sangalli Haute Couture collection.
Which are the three main things we should do to really change Milan Fashion Week?
Federico Sangalli: a. Changing the fashion institutions; b. Changing the local and national institutions; c. Changing the frame of mind of Italian fashion houses. It would actually be easier to change the entire fashion system, but you have to bear in mind that the fashion industry is also part of the Italian system. We could actually state that fashion is at the moment a very tired yet perfect representation of the problems that Italy has got at the moment: gerontocracy in power, fashion xenophilia, total lack of support of real merit and talent, but full support to mediocre designers who are not good enough to disrupt the status quo and the system or, as an alternative, support to a friend of a friend or to somebody who is affiliated to this or that group but who can usually be filed under the previously mentioned "mediocre" category, and, above all, the absolute incapacity to create a proper “system”. Italians can be very clever as individuals, but we do not have the concept of collectivity, of belonging to a community. When there is a tangible "risk" that somebody really talented may emerge, you isolate them for envy or to avoid that they may interfere with the establishment. You could see it as an aggravated "tall poppy syndrome" with some destructive consequences on a community level as well. Apart from that you must also take into account the predators and parasites that surround those ones who are trying to emerge, together with the banks, a suicidal labour law and a tax system worthy of a regime. All these factors contributed to reduce the country to the state we are living in at the moment. You can only guess what kind of future we may have. Yet, if it wouldn't be possible to change everything, I would still be happy to change something. I was born in Milan and, despite what people in certain circles may tell you, the local Fashion Week is an arid desert when it comes to creativity, numbers of participants and buyers. Every season - even this one - I do hope that something changes, but every time nothing happens. If you're not part of it, you don't even realise that it's taking place. But how could you expect something to change if it's the same circus, with the same faces, the same creations and the same interviews riddled with banalities and with the usual suspects hanging around the shows? Even the Italian fashion media seems paralysed: they repeat the same mantra about Milan Fashion Week, about its success and the way it resists and actually supports young designers. The latter is actually the biggest lie, but the funny thing is that, in a normal world, you wouldn't need to support the young creatives because they would be able to walk by themselves once you remove certain barriers and constrictions.
What would you do if you were the leader of the Chamber of Fashion to renew this institution?
Federico Sangalli: It's a job I couldn't and wouldn't do. The Italian Chamber of Fashion does pretty well its job that consists in protecting the interests of its members. I wouldn't like to run it because putting together all the different entities gravitating in the Italian fashion industry is not only impossible, it is useless. Once again the problem here regards the structure: there is a certain ambiguity in such pseudo-institutional associations representing a category with roles, interests and duties that seem to overlap with those of other national and governmental institutions. Besides, the Chamber has been chaired for roughly fifteen years by the same person, so it a fossilised institution, while Milan in the meantime turned from fashion capital and key market to a liminal and satellite fashion town living off beautiful memories. And so the years pass, new designers emerge from other countries and Italy gets forgotten, but maybe this is more or less what they want to obtain. Again the fashion media share their responsibilities: I've read long and acritical features this year about renewing the Chamber of Fashion, about its radical changes and the great support that they are giving to young designers - they always write about these topics because it's a politically correct thing to do to mention them, but they never name any supposedly young designers who are so strongly “supported”. This happens so that no real changes take place. Fashion, as I said, reflects the conditions Italy is in at the moment and we are the country of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's Leopard: you must fake, pretend and proclaim a change is happening, so that it never takes place.
What should be done to genuinely help young designers?
Federico Sangalli: That's a million dollar question. At the moment the market is in the hands of very few people and that is not only happening in the fashion industry. A commercial war is rewriting the production and distribution systems in all the industries, not just in fashion. I can't see many spaces for young people, unless for the ones supported by those forces causing this war and this is bringing down creativity and quality. I tried to enthusiastically enter the fashion week system myself and was firmly convinced that I could change it. Looking upon those times from today's perspective I can see that it was a useless and damaging fight. I felt sucked into a horrible vortex and then spat out like an alien entity. If you are a young designer and you're not part of a system, don't let yourself be tempted: this world is not as glamorous as it looks. Most of the times you are surrounded by people who prompt and push you to do things that they tell you are absolutely unavoidable, but that you realise are totally avoidable. It is indeed possible to try other paths, be more creative and more free and, above all, slow down fashion, create our own space and time and doing it for ourselves and for our customers. This would offer a better quality when it comes to garments, but also a better life, production and even improved sales.
So, is it truly possible to actually slow down fashion?
Federico Sangalli: It is not only possible to slow the fashion system – and the world – down, but it is necessary, it is indeed vitally important to grant our collective survival. Jokes aside, slowing down the fashion industry is a key issue related to the quality of creativity and, in our case, to the life of Italian fashion itself. Unless you want to consider yourself happy with what you have at the moment - trash fashion that, season after season, becomes uglier and increasingly looks the same. Every day that passes fast fashion acquires new levels of speed and loses its fashion merits and this is definitely not for me, since I feel unable to adapt to a fast system. I consider indeed the creative process as a mix of magic, thought, culture, passion, and taste. All these elements do not go well with today's fashion industry. I decided to get out of the system because it had created a sort of unhealthy environment around me. I was surrounded by people who were stirring me towards the wrong paths, and who were risking of compromising my work and my health. I ran away from them and became once again the master of my own life and work processes. This is what slow fashion means – to master once again your own time, to go back to breathing again, to take care of your own creations, love them and show respect and love for your clients as well. At the moment, I have clients from all over the world, nobody interferes in my designer-customer relation or doubts about the saleability of what I design. I have no intention of getting back into the system, but if it ever happens, it will have to be a radically new systems, at my conditions and with my own rules.
Does the "Made in Italy" concept still exist or can we revive it?
Federico Sangalli: It is actually dead and buried, the only problem is that the people involved in the industry haven't realised it. Yet we can obviously revive it because it is in our DNA, but we need a new entrepreneurial and political generation and we do not have it at the moment, plus we also need laws that can stop goods and textiles made without following certain standards and produced by exploiting workers in dangerous environments, to enter Italian ground, while taxes, costs, bureaucracy and quality and safety standards remain compulsory for Italian manufacturers. Earlier on in my notes I mentioned the commercial war rewriting the production and distribution systems, and it's exactly this war that has damaged the quality and the beauty of Made in Italy goods.
Full disclosure: Federico Sangalli wasn't paid to write the notes featured in this post, but, asked to provide his feedback about the fashion industry, willingly contributed to this site for free; the site owner and editor, Anna Battista, didn't receive any money, clothes or favours from him, but thought it would have been interesting to offer Sangalli this space and allow the site readers to hear his views.
All images in this post courtesy and copyright Federico Sangalli.
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