Today, more than ever, fashion means leaving nothing to chance. It means creating a product, starting, above all, from the consumer: a new type of well-informed customer, who chooses what to buy based on emotions, ideas and experiences demonstrating a sound knowledge and understanding of the sector.
Last Thursday, November 13th, Expo Riva Schuh and Gardabags Around The World offered “Get a feel for the future,” looking at this complicated context, providing dozens of professionals with some useful tools to help them interpret the present and design the future of Italian and international leather goods.
The meeting, organised in Alba Adriatica at the premises of ATEA, the consortium for the protection of craft excellence of the Marche and Abruzzo regions, opened with greetings from the host – the Chairman of ATEA, Francesco Palandrani – and by representatives of local institutions: the under-secretary to the Presidency of the Regional Council of Abruzzo, Umberto D’Annuntiis and the Chairman of the Teramo Chamber of Commerce, Gloriano Lanciotti, both of whom showed their interest and support of all those initiatives that guarantee development, growth and the success of the leather industry.
Gardabags clearly emerged amongst the various ideas, an international trade fair for bags and accessories, presented by Carla Costa,Exhibitions Manager for Riva del Garda Fierecongressi. Two strategic objectives were highlighted for the event in 2020: internationalisation, meaning a study and penetration of emerging markets, and training, seen as a tool to facilitate innovation and to guarantee the survival of ‘Made in Italy’ excellence, spreading technical knowledge regarding materials, trends and production processes.
The more technical part of the “Get a feel for the future” meeting was presented by Maria Cristina Rossi, Design Courses Leader and Marketing & Merchandising Consultant, who, by analysing the key trends of the latest fashion shows, outlined a useful working method that can trace the modern consumer’s profile, which is an unprecedented starting point for getting to grips with fashion today and tomorrow.
Maria Cristina Rossi spoke, in particular, about “millennials,” a generation that is used to always being connected, strongly communicative and constantly balanced between tradition and a desire to live, a new customer who challenges fashion companies to take a fresh look at their own identities based on change and digital innovation.
#TREND
“Trends are worlds in which the consumer can identify him or herself” - Maria Cristina Rossi
CHECK: Check confirms the explosion of creativity in fashion. Clothes, shoes and bags that are interpreted through this motif convey strong messages and the woman who wears them demonstrates grace, femininity and the desire to experiment new things with extravagance and unpredictability. Check shows extreme maximalism on the one side and elegance of the spirit on the other.
ANIMALIER: Animal prints never seem to go into hibernation and emerge from a glorious past where this style was synonymous with extreme elegance and a more glamorous identity. The new animalier is always mixed, alternating giant format interpretations with strong colour contaminations. It is interpreted and reinterpreted a thousand times depending upon the brand, and in its modern guise it conveys a great deal of irony.
CHAINS: We’re not talking about chains as an accessory, but as a leading fashion theme. The chains seen at the latest fashion shows are large, obvious and showy, providing an original touch to all kinds of bags, from clutch to shopper, embellishing them, livening them up and making them unique.
BOLD COLOURS: The total look is influenced by an explosion of colours, at times by means of one, single colour (bags in single, individual, bold colours) and at others with monochromatic outfits.
BIKER: The “biker” trend is a clear symbol of freedom, anti-conformity and rebellion. In bags, the interior explodes outwards, making quilts and reinforcements a winning and much-loved choice.
ROCK: In the latest fashion shows, the rock style boasts a significant use of metal, in the form of studs, piercings and chains, giving personality to dresses, shoes and bags and defining a generation that does not like to go unnoticed.
INFLATED: This trend is mainly applied to bags, meaning a way of working them starting from inside not out. This technique results in accessories with provocative images that appear inflated and with unusual lines.
EXTREME SHAPE: This trend once again takes shapes to the extreme and is also predominantly seen amongst accessories, which are excessively elongated either vertically or horizontally.
#CUSTOMERPROFILE
INTELLECTUAL CHAOS: Combining unusual designs, experimenting, exaggerating, daring and exasperating. The ‘intellectual chaos’ customer is not afraid of mixing things up and doesn’t think of collections as a thing linked to age. He or she wears bold accessories, loves the check trend and boldly and brazenly mixes materials with something plant-based. This customer creates unusual combinations that are never vulgar. In fact, they are always intellectual.
NEW CLASSIC: This is a return to tailoring in a more contemporary key, appreciated by the new classic consumer. In a perennial balance between casual and elegant, this consumer identifies herself with a woman who is as classic as she is playful, very feminine and wearing super-elegant bags featuring unusual elements, (such as bold colours).
EXTREME: Extreme shapes, extreme colours, extreme sizes, details and materials. We’re talking about the consumer who opts for outfits where black and white are masterfully combined, The ‘extreme’ consumer loves fluorescent colours, goes overboard with colours (bright orange and shocking pink, for example) and combos such as animal prints and chains. And when he or she chooses to wear black, then its a real, yet wrinkled, statement .
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