Showing fashion production

New identities of manufacturing places in Italy

Abstract

This contribution investigates how many international luxury brands have contributed in the last fifteen years to defining new identities of fashion and its locations, reconfiguring, in particular, those linked to manufacturing. These phenomena should not, however, be interpreted as a nostalgic glance at the past or as a stereotyped view of the artisanal identity of Made in Italy. Instead, it is proposed here that they be inserted into the theoretical framework of the new materialism, a concept developed by Anneke Smelik according to which everything is made of matter: "things, objects, art, fashion and people [...] everything is a mixture of organic, mineral, vegetable and synthetic materials". Due to a financial, environmental and social crisis, fashion has begun reconstructing certainties instead of possible imaginary worlds, seeking a return to matter. The paper analyses some case studies in which this return to the material dimension of fashion is evident through the valorisation and exhibition of production processes. These examples are significant for their capacity to rethink fashion places and their functions, creating new relationships between people and territories.