Photo: Courtesy of the Italian Trade Agency
For centuries, Italians have been designing beauty of the highest quality, but just when you think you know Italy, she surprises you.
Because of its variety of landscapes and mild climate, for centuries Italians have called it the Bel Paese, but Italy is as beautiful as it is capable. Italians have always designed beauty. Dressing well, furnishing tastefully, and being stars in the history of cinema and architecture, are just a few examples of this DNA–a talent that has an inestimable economic and social value, capable of even changing the aesthetics and substance of the rest of the world.
There’s a heritage of culture, creativity, and know-how that Italy showcases beyond its borders and innovates every day. An intellectual, manufactory, industrial and scientific wealth undergoes continuous transformation, in step with the way life is changing, with real needs.
Photo: Courtesy of the Italian Trade Agency
Made in Italy doesn’t simply mean “made in Italy”
The essential and the superfluous merge and become muddled in a constant search for wonder. At the heart of Italy’s longstanding creativity is a profound knowledge of raw materials and the latest technologies.
For that reason, Made in Italy is not a simple territorial label used to indicate just any Italian product, but a genuine creative signature. This signature is a guarantee: the object you have in front of your eyes is the result of extraordinary work, of production organized to obtain the best possible project. We are talking about fashion, the seventh art, and about design, which has fuelled Italy’s reputation since the mid-twentieth century, but also about sectors such as aerospace, sustainability, and sport.
Photo: Courtesy of the Italian Trade Agency
From great beauty come great responsibilities
There is no country in the world that contains a greater number of Unesco World Heritage Sites. This is a point of pride for Italy, but also an enormous responsibility. In fact, over the centuries preserving wonders such as the city of Venice, the Prosecco hills, and the Colosseum have required the work of countless workers, industries, and researchers. The restoration sector represents 51% of the entire Italian cultural apparatus.
In Italy, culture is preserved and produced at the same time. For example, today the audio-visual industry uses 1.5 million workers, quite a high percentage of the population. Part of this category, for example, are films by Italian auteurs, from Vittorio De Sica and Fellini to Benigni and Paolo Sorrentino, who created the most beloved non-English language cinema: 28 nominations and 14 Oscars have gone to Italian directors.
Thanks also to the films of the 1950s, Italy was able to show the entire world its revolutionary interiors and its first designers, who were not even called that yet, like Marco Zanuso and the master Gio Ponti. Many of the famous accessories designed by Aurelio Zanotta, Umberto Cassina, Vico Magistretti, Alessandro Mendini and Achille Castiglioni are still in production.
The industrial design of furnishings and lighting has remained central in Italy over time, with one of the highest concentrations of creatives in the world, in particular in the city of Milan.
Photo: Courtesy of the Italian Trade Agency
In Italy, it’s clear: fashion isn’t just something you wear
When it comes to creativity and Made in Italy, thoughts immediately go to the fashion sector. Here scientific research works in concert with traditional manufactories that date back to 1500. In this country, one idea is clear: fashion is not just something you wear, it has a social impact.
Fashion is gender revolution, respect for cultures, political activism, economic well-being and freedom. Made in Italy style doesn’t dictate rules, it questions pre-existing ones. You could say that the fashion and cosmetics industries are relentless when it comes to innovating, as well as when it comes to holding onto tradition by the fingernails. Made in Italy fashion thus becomes capable of acting, even when it comes to the most controversial topics, from diversity to energy consumption.
The numbers also talk—the first place in Europe for the manufacture of footwear, with 5,031 companies, second place in the world for clothing exports, of which an impressive 70% is haute couture, and fourth for the export of textiles. In high fashion, leather goods are significant, representing 21% of exports.
All this excellence is now also showcased to the rest of the world by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the ITA-Italian Trade Agency with a project dedicated to Made in Italy.
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