Special Projects, Up-and-coming Brands, New Designers, Innovative Locations, Special Guests and Highlights on Sustainability Turn White Milano Into the Nerve Centre of Tomorrow’s Ready-to-wear.
The upcoming edition of WHITE MILANO, due to open on 19th September 2019, is exceptionally momentous. Owing to the new location – in the hub in Tortona 31 Opificio, Ex Carrozzeria – and to the several projects involving exhibitors, buyers and media partners – for example a new format in collaboration with CBI – but also, and most importantly, owing to the quality of the brands on show, the first-rate designers at the Trade show, the new course undertaken by the Basement and the focus on sustainability, an increasingly central theme in fashion system, and also to the initiative in connection with Regione Sicilia, which will bring into the limelight the most remarkable and innovative Sicilian brands. With a +4% increase in the number of brands on show (compared to the latest edition) and an exhibiting surface of 23thousand square meters (4,5% more than in September 2018), the trade show, under the aegis of the Municipality of Milan, is the go-to platform for contemporary womenswear, thanks also to the support of MISE and ITA Agency and to the partnership with Confartigianato Imprese, also thanks to the relentless international scouting activity carried out by WHITE, which has reached as far as the Far East, and allows buyers to find at the trade show new, cutting-edge brands like Gayeon Lee, Barragán, Nashe, Agarw-Ūd, FILLES A PAPA and, from China, YOUPPIE!, Damowang, Selah, Pingsi Zhou and AMNUE. Among the September highlights: Laura Aparicio, Ancient Greek Sandals, Yuliya Magdych, Agua de Coco por Liana Thomaz, as well as labels like Pipatchara, Base Mark, Lu Ren Cashmere, Estebanot, Stella Tures. Among the important labels making a comeback in September: Faliero Sarti, Transit Par-Such, Pierre-Louis Mascia, Roberto Collina, Sofie D’Hoore, Attic and Barn, OOF WEAR, Salvatore Santoro, Rundholz Black Label & Dip.
«ITA has believed in WHITE since its very onset, the Trade-Show that promotes contemporary fashion – a segment featuring premium, highly specialized and highly creative small and medium-sized businesses, capable of taking up the challenge of the global markets and win. The collaboration with Confartigianato has allowed to boost the numbers over the last four years, both in terms of visitors and international insiders, reinstating the Show as an appointment that cannot be missed in the arena of global fashion events, as well as a shining example of synergy between the private and the public sector. The crucial role of ITA (Italian Trade Agency) is also to support the internationalization of the SMEs of the fashion business on the international markets, and White is an excellent tool to do so», declares Roberto Luongo, ITA’s general manager.
What’s more, the early opening on Thursday 19th (instead of Friday) enables a strategic synchronicity with the calendar of the womenswear fashion week and the other major fashion events. The timing also allows exhibitors to benefit from the presence of the many international insiders in Milan during the fashion week. This is a further step in the right direction to bolster the centrality of the show, which confirms WHITE and Tortona Fashion District’s standing as dynamic and vital hub during Milan’s fashion week.
«Year after year, the collaboration between WHITE and the Municipality of Milan proves to be an essential element for the success of the Milano Fashion Week – so Cristina Tajani, Councillor for Labour, Productive Activities, Fashion and Design of the Municipality of Milan – A collaboration that is grounded on the common determination to back and promote new designers and fashion businesses, which at WHITE can find an ideal stage to launch the outcome of their creativity and their language, but, most importantly, on a collateral action aiming to promote the birth of a new way of conceiving fashion and the whole production cycle. The latter, today more than ever, must be sustainable and ethical, capable of coming up with environment-friendly collections and products, with emphasis on working conditions too. A challenge that WHITE and the Municipality of Milano have decided to take up together over the last few years».
Today, both among buyers and end-users, there is growing awareness in terms of sustainability and responsibility, as well as a greater focus on hand-made products. WHITE MILANO backs this trend by bringing to the fore the small and medium-sized companies that, owing to their structure, hold great ethical and social value, they are sustainable in itself and represent the backbone of the Country, so as to promote them with the wider public that regularly comes to the trade-fair.
The collaboration between Confartigianato and WHITE – states the President Giuseppe Mazzarella, representative for Internationalization at Confartigianato Imprese – epitomizes an important international stage for Italy’s craftsmanship excellence. Fashion is the strength of the made in Italy, thanks to the contribution made by the 79thousand micro and small businesses that employ 372thousand people and export for a value of 10,3 billion euro. The Italian small-sized apparel, footwear, textile businesses export twice as much as their counterparts in Germany, France, Spain and United Kingdom together. This performance confirms the values expressed by our artisan entrepreneurs and the huge contribution they make to made-in-Italy fashion. They are an incentive that spurs the young generations to express their creativity in a sector with solid economic outlook.