HERE WE GO AGAIN
PART 1
China: Catastrophe for creativity or luxury opportunity?
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2005
MILAN On Wednesday, Italian fashion tries to answer the burning question about the upcoming generation. "Who's Next?" - a show of three finalists out of 300 nationwide sweep - aims to nurture the future.
It is, above all, an attempt to support creativity at a time when the "Made in Italy" era is literally going out of fashion.
Even as the new talents take to the runway, under the auspices of Franca Sozzani, editor of French Vogue and of Rome's Alta Moda organization, yet another small Italian company will be going out of business.
The threat of China has become a scourge in this country which has been the manufacturing hub of European design for 30 years - and consequently the greatest supporter of emerging talent.
But the happy days of the Italian industrial colossus buttressing innovative fashion are over - just at the moment when creativity, know-how and deeply felt luxury are the only weapons to fight the onslaught of the Chinese.
Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana celebrate this season the 20th anniversary of the vibrant company they founded from scratch, yet fashion folk are aware that this is the last of Italy's titans. Since they emerged, building up first a designer line, then an affordable range, with myriad accessories and ancillary products, there has been no one in Italy to challenge them.
The emergence of China as a manufacturing force has had much the same trajectory as a start-up designer company: a small nibble at the market, followed by a solid business and increasing export success. But the growth of China since the global trade regulations were lifted in January has become colossal, causing such a worldwide flood of shirts, pants, underwear, socks and shoes that the European Union finally took action. This month's crisis meetings, blocking an excess of Chinese exports to Europe, has led to so-called "bra wars," resulting in a shortage of low-cost underwear on the European market and pictures of containers of clothing banked up at ports.
What is the connection between Chinese-manufactured T-shirts and the high fashion on the Milan runways? Ultra-cheap clothes, welcomed by consumers and retailers, undermine the fashion manufacturers, already challenged by the arrival of fast-fashion chains such as H&M and Zara, whose products are often also made in the Far East. As Li Edelkoort, the respected fashion forecaster, warns, the Chinese whirlwind will flatten the fashion world as we know it and change radically its familiar landscape.
"I am afraid that we are seeing the genocide of the culture of textiles," says Edelkoort. "Everyone is putting eggs in one basket - China - and that is potentially devastating for our cultural heritage."
"We are already taking away work from Morocco, Turkey and Greece, betraying our former partners."
"The day a T-shirt is cheaper than a croissant, we are arriving at indecent prices," she continues. "We know what goes into making a croissant, but when you bring the price of clothes down so dramatically, all other things like newspapers and coffee seem overvalued. It becomes a moral problem."
Edelkoort's concern is not so much with clothing - since "we already know that the Far East copies Western design" - but with textiles.
"The day we radically want to renew fabrics, we will need traditional skills," she says.
"And people don't realize that if we don't get textile ideas out of Italy, Spain and maybe Scotland and Ireland, Asia is not ready to pick up the culture."
Others see a less apocalyptic scenario, believing that small Italian companies have the ability to be flexible.
Raffaello Napoleone, chief executive of Florence's Pitti Imagine exhibitions, even sees a ray of hope for Europe in its attempt to tame the Chinese dragon.