How Italian fashion makers think and work: the perspective from a fashion broker
August ‘26
Dear readers, I’m Gianfranco and I belong to the second generation of my family working in the fashion industry in Italy. My father was a tailor, and I have been a fashion broker for over 30 years. My job is the hidden glue inside the supply chain: I manage the relationship between brands, pattern makers, suppliers, and manufacturers.
I've mostly worked with international clients, my responsibility is to understand their needs and translate them into concrete actions for the Italian fashion makers in my network. In my day-to-day, I observe two worlds overlapping: the brand’s world, with its creative expectations and commercial needs, and the manufacturing world, made of craft expertise and technical constraints.
Over the years, both worlds have changed deeply. We used to run on a direct line from idea to garment, but now production timelines have shrunk while the micro-management between design and manufacturing has exploded into a lot of micro steps. The result? This industry has produced a super complex supply-chain that new brands do not know how to deal with.
Italian supply chain players (as pattern makers, manufacturers etc) are a synonym of excellence thanks to heritage and the extraordinary skills passed on from generation to generation, but these skills are currently not supported by efficient processes to transfer the value.
We (as Italians) make a big mistake to position technology against traditional manufacturing processes. Technology shouldn't be idealized or resisted: it needs to be understood and governed.
3D, AI, and other digital tools can't replace the experience and the manual know-how of artisans. But they can organize information better, anticipate errors, cut out unnecessary steps, and make it easier for fashion people all over the world to communicate
Matchmaking a designer with a manufacturer isn't enough. Someone has to understand what a creative intent means for producers. As said before, our supply chain is based on generational chains: it’s fundamental to continue investing in this in order to not extinguish ourselves.
That’s why I find Studioforma interesting: not only for the technology it provides, but for the attempt to rethink the process through which designers and manufacturers collaborate.
I agree with the problem Studioforma wants to solve: for a manufacturer, making a prototype means investing time and expertise, and it becomes difficult for them to accept that job without a bulk production perspective. Designers and manufacturers look at the same project from different points of view. Technology can help them to connect, but to make it work you also need to translate each other’s needs towards a common goal.
I strongly believe the future of the Italian supply chain will depend on finding the right compromise to make innovation and tradition coexist. We don't need to turn Made in Italy into something different from what it is. We need to find a contemporary way to keep doing what we've learned to do over generations.
