Italy: High-end Fashion Mekka – also for sustainability?

This article appeared in edited form in Ecotextile News Edition of August/September 2014.

Co-written with: Alberto Saccavini.

Italy.

Known for the style of its inhabitants, the quality and sharp cut of its suits, the inventiveness of its fashion designers, the quality of its fabrics. However, while the diversity among Italian fashion designers is precisely the root of their ongoing popularity and commercial strength, Italy has more recently struggled to maintain its status producer of these same high-end items due to the shifts in global sourcing markets, particularly since 2008, i.e. in the aftermaths of the most recent European economic crisis.

Yet, the fact remains that Italy remains the most important European sourcing destination for fabrics, the display window of high-end fashion and craftsmanship – even more so than this is the case for France – , and among the global top three of best-in-class textile equipment manufacturers, innovators and exporters. And with the Marzotto Group, the country boasts itself home to Europe’s largest textile manufacturer.

Italy and Sustainability: Apparel & High Fashion

If we talk sustainability in textiles and fashion, on first sight it seems as if not much really is going on. This impression is certainly confirmed by the facts if the Italian fashion consumer market is more closely examined: social as well as environmental topics are a as good as a non topic, a fact entirely replicated by the consumer-faced communication of major brands and retailers, as well as the notable low profile of activist NGOs.

Italy was indeed until rather recently as good as entirely absent in the European, or indeed global, textile sustainability discussion.

Early efforts of retailers such as Yooxgen and Zalando Eco were niche in absolute terms, as were the activities of e.g. Intimissi which included Italy in its bra take-back scheme, the Pure Threads collaborations between Emma Watson and Alberta Ferretti.

The discussion really only kicked off with the publication of the book ‘The Beautiful and the Good’, followed a couple of seasons of Livia Firth’s Green Carpet Challenge. It was only then established designers and brands felt they were willing to take a gamble and face the spotlight under what for them overall was unchartered territory. In collaboration with brands such as Gucci, Prada, Valentino, Armani or Alberta Ferretti she profiled Italian high fashion in a novel way, and giving it a somewhat different profile – one that brought for the first time the focus to the Italian industry as a whole. And indeed: other brands have followed suit since, as Max Mara’s launch of a sustainable line, the Diesel and Edun collaboration, the Bottega Veneta Vegan Purses project and even The Sustainability Manifesto For Italian Fashion presented by the Italian Fashion Chamber prove.

Unsurprisingly though, the development among the top brand is really just one of experimentation rather than of commitment and fundamental change. Their very own approach to ‘feasibility studies’ if you wish.

The real innovation comes – unsurprisingly – from small brands with plenty of both, traditional as well as modern craftsmanship:

The collections of YOJ by Laura Strambi go beyond the material and concentrates extensively on design and art and luxury manufacturing. Like many others of her generation, the designer originally started out under the ‘exclusively organic” paradigm. However, overtime, the brand incorporated more interesting and innovative materials such as Jakroki®– a non-woven made from cellulose and paper fibers – with strong sustainable credentials, in addition to recycled wool and silk.

Another example is Cangiari, which can be characterised by the terms ‘handmande’ and ‘artisanship’. Consequently, the brand stands out for its hand-loomed fabrics and the fully traceable supply chain “Made in Italy”. While the sustainability of the fabrics used in their collection is important to the brands, a fact underlined by their GOTS certifications. More interestingly however: Cangiari is controlled by the GOEL Group, a group of social enterprises in the Southern Calabria area, which promotes employment of disadvantaged people, and works towards “social and economic redemption of our homeland”.

Italy and Sustainability: Fabrics & Yarns

Unknown to most, Italy – or more specifically: Prato, an industrial city some 30km outside of Florence – was known since the Middle Age for the recycling of wool: wool garments that had served their time, as well as manufacturing leftovers or failure, were mechanically disassembled and the resulting raw material then was the starting point for fabric ranges that would only give away their humble origins to the eye and touch of the expert. At a much lower price point than the virgin products coming out the country’s ‘official’ wool capital Biella.

Some of that heritage remains: proof of which is the role it played as the fabric manufacturing location of M&S’ famous Shwop wool coat a few seasons ago.

The city hence remains still a hub for quality fabrics of recycles natural fibres, a fact that cannot be overseen inspite of the rather amateurish, akin to greenwashing, ‘Cardato regenerato CO2 neutral’ marketing programme launched in 2012.

However, while Prato may be among the historic pioneers, it is elsewhere in Italy that the boundaries are being pushed and innovation – technical and certainly in terms of sustainability – is happening.

Let’s start at the cross over of 2 Italian signature products: Pecorino cheese and wool. Pecorino cheese is probably second only to Parmesan, it is produced from sheep milk at a total yearly quantity of around 37.000 tons/year. The total sheep population in Italy amounts to just over 10 million heads – the wool of which is usually discarded for its lack of quality. It is hence not the available quantity, but the lack of quality that prevents the Italian wool industry to use what they grow within their own borders. Notwithstanding, more recently a “merino-isation” is taking place, and has brought on the development of interesting projects that aim at bringing Italian wool back into use in the nation’s fashion industry. Examples of such efforts are spearheaded by two major Veneto-based mills, Lanificio Paoletti or Lanificio Bottoli. Their developments have matured to a degree where they are happy to commercialise fabrics ranges entirely made from local wool.

With barely 40 years of history much younger than the two above mentioned companies, for Italdenim sustainability meant since right from the beginning a synthesis between innovation and respect to the environment. Today, more than 20% of the cotton used is of sustainable – GOTS, BetterCotton, or internally recycled – origin. And although their current use of recycled PET is still marginal, their supply chain is ready for a quick scale up. At the same time, their use of of thermoplastic and ceramic elastomeric fibres in most of their ranges results in the use of lower temperatures throughout, and makes the use of recycled polyethylene possible.

In addition to the development of a waterless dye technology used for specific product lines, in 2013 Italdenim internalised the production of textile auxiliaries. The advantages: a substantial reduction in water transportation, and a complete control over their formulations, a fact that allows them to guarantee the total absence of toxic substances.

Innovation in the Italian textile landscape does of course not stop at the re-invention of their traditional roots, but to look into the future into old-new sourcing concepts:
While Sinterama’s Newlife is probably the most renown mechanically processed recycled polyester yarn. What is however possibly of even more significance is the fact that Newlife is produced from PET which stems from the mill’s regional district’s own urban recycling plant, and in that sense is very close to being ‘kilometer zero’. As a consequence, the yarn and fabric’s
supply chain have been certified with Textile Exchange’s Global Recycling Standard.

In a similar vein, Aquafil has managed to come up with a depolymerization process, conceptually akin to Teijin’s EcoCircle, for nylon yarn from, in equal parts, pre- and post-consumer waste such as discarded fishing nets or flooring carpets, and commercialised under the brand name Econyl.
The yarn is manufactured in process which is distributed across three sites in the Ljubliana area of Slovenia. With the company itself headquartered at a relatively short distance from the manufacturing sites, and with exception of the waste input material itself, the production of this yarn is once again a rather localised affair. Econyl is used for example by Jersey Lomellina for the manufacturing of knit fabric specifically for the swimwear industry.

With the Radici Group, Italy is home to one of the largest chemical groups in the world that plays an important role in textile fiber production. Crucially, they’re among the few that thanks to their 360 degrees approach to sustainability, based on LCAs to obtain Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), managed to identify the respective business case, which resulted in a substantial reduction of their overall footprint.

In the realm of incoming European legisation, the Group recently signed an agreement with the Italian Ministry of the Environment to serve as a pilot for the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) and the Organisation Environmental Footprint (OEF) assessments. For that
pilot, the EPD System is applied to the entire supply chain, and the respective internal Product Category Rules (PCRs) applied to the recycling of all plastic scrap generated in production and recycled into products with the same technical performance.

That more and more mills are seeing a business case in sustainability and the respective innovation potential becomes clear when flipping through Milano Unica’s ‘Sustainable Fabrics and Accessories Catalogue’ which has been going for the past 3 seasons already, and in which some of the most innovative and forward looking mills in terms of sustainability, have
been showcased in. The catalogue can indeed be considered a milestone in the Italian textile landscape: not only is it based on a stringent review of credentials by textile sustainability experts, but its steady take up by both featured mills as well as buyers proofs that it is a well received complimentary offer to the trade fair’s main exhibitors index.

Italy and Sustainability: Equipment

Quite in contrast to Italian mills, or very different to the distinctly late starting fashion brands: when it comes to technological development, Italian manufacturers have seen the opportunity and business case of sustainability rather early on, if only pushed by the fact of having to add value to products that undoubtedly at the very premium end of the price spectrum.

In their ‘Sustainable Technologies’ project, ACIMIT – the Italian Association of Textile Machinery Manufacturers – developed a ‘green label’ which quantifies the energy performances and the environmental impact of textile machinery, based on the efficiency of the respective production processes, as well as the machine design itself. While the concept as such is not unique globally speaking, it is the only certification scheme where KPIs are well specified and form a firm part of the certification process, and which is audited by an independent 3rd party (RINA).

Among the companies that have been certified with the ‘green label’ are renowned names such as: loom maker ITEMA, the country’s longest standing manufacturer of finishing equipment Mario Crosta or Marzoli, a tradition firm producing spinning equipment with over 100 years of company history.

Further, collaborations between mills and manufacturers, in order to improve the mill’s processes and technologies, have produced interesting results. One such example is Sensient Technologies – specialised in ink-jet printing solutions – and who developed exclusively for Miroglio Textiles a polyester fabrics printing process, named e.volution, which combines the requirement for top quality result with a substantial reduction in environmental footprint: Water consumption is reduced by up to 90% (from 50 down to as little as 3 liters per meter), C02 is reduced up to 25% (urea-free process), and power consumption is reduced by up to 37% as a result of a substantial reduction in processing time for washing, steaming and drying.

Conclusion

Italy’s advances in questions of sustainability in textiles is marked trends that are moving towards two dichotomic directions: a high motivation to innovation and ‘get things moving’ on the one hand – primarily from the industrial manufacturing sector, as a result of business pressures and the need to improve margins for themselves or their clients – , and a blunt disinterest on the other hand, by consumers, fashion brands and designer, and retailers. The market is further defined by a vast inexperience in how to communicate with the respective target public. A fact that results in an approach that reaches from greenwashing over understatement to hard facts in the first case, and from soft ‘feel be good’ claims to greenwashing in the other.

Importantly, the social aspects of sustainability – labour conditions, fair wages etc. – are as as good as entirely ignored under the assumption that, one, the rather rigid Italian laws will account for that – at least on a national level. That this is an entirely flawed assumption has been proven wrong it at least two separate occasions: firstly in 2006, when Roberto Saviano already exposed illegal haut-couture workshops run by the Neapolitan mafia in the south of the country; and secondly, when it December 2013 7 Chinese immigrant workers died in a workshop fire in Prato putting the spotlight on the abysmal working conditions of legal immigrants, and venting the openly known secret of many more illegal workers labouring away in tiny backyard workshop shacks in the Prato area.

What can be conclusively said hence, is that the recognition of the sustainability business case in Italy needs still quite some work. On the innovation scale from ‘early adopter’ to ‘laggard’, the country as a whole can at best be classified as ‘follower’. An attribute confirmed by e.g. the most recent activity of the Prato Chamber of Commerce that only in this very moment is starting to look into the TFashion (Traceability & Fashion) system developed by the Italian Chamber of Commerce.

This should however not diminish the achievements of some manufacturers that out of their own conviction, and driven by the spirit of innovation, have made a mark on the global industry with their developments. Companies like Lanificio Paoletti, Lanificio Bottoli, Italdenim, Miroglio, Sinterama, Aquafil, are without a doubt marking the territory. Their approaches are well thought through, both pragmatic as well as visionary, and, most importantly, they are grounded in the actual feasibility, needs and operations within factories.