Driade and the Death of Italian Craftsmanship

Just before Design Week and Salone del Mobile kicked off here in Milan, we had the chance to meet Elisa Astori, the Managing Director of Driade.  Driade began in the late 60's by producing finished pieces of furniture, and now designs and produces furniture, kitchens, objects and complements for total living systems.  With 45 internal designers, and frequent external collaborations, Driade's focus is on exploring aesthetics to provide an ecclectic living experience. Design collaborations first began in Japan in 1989, as the company began to search for creativity, design critiques, cultural personalities, and so on with the intention of bringing emotion to clients through their environment, and to anticipate and precede trends.  The Japanese contact was made by chance through a need to resolve highly technical production issues.  Next retail partnerships were formed for distribution, and then the Japanese architect Toyo Ito was introduced to the company designers.  Through this collaboration, Ito embarked on a new scale of design, and Driade's new design aesthetic evolved.  The strong Japanese aesthetic within Driade set the rythm for ecclectic and multicultural design inspiration, and the company next collaborated with designers from China, using traditional materials in new ways.  This year, the company began it's collaboration work with designers from India.

Distribution currently exists in 84 countries predominantly in Europe.  The company is pushing for new growth in emerging countries, especially through these strategic design collaborations.  By always working between high design and industrialized materials (such as plastic), the company balances a high-low dimension, and introduces many smaller household elements handcrafted around the world in various native materials as complementors.

The company is interior design-based, with experts in many materials, thus taking the company from a product-focused strategy to a total corporate identity.  The business model is therefore design-based, with production outsourced to various specialized manufacturers, and the majority of resources and attention centered on the design process and results.  The outsourced manufacturers are now increasingly located in Eastern Europe or the Far East, and as the design teams are increasingly international, what is left of the "Made in Italy" business model is the design culture of the brand and the company.

According to Astori, the world is rapidly changing, and there is no emerging generation of Italian craftsmen, as many young Italians are encouraged to pursue a professional degree and often wish to leave the country upon graduation.  Driade's current prototypist is now 70 years old, and while several students have taken a very short internship with him from design school, there is no apprentice program in place, no placement system, and apparently no interested applicants (if there were interested applicants, they would have a hard time making their interest known, however).  Therefore, there is no one to invest in for local training in the traditional craft of Italian furniture production, and if Driade were to depend on the craftsmen of Italy for design and production it would be bankrupt in 5 years when the craftsmen stop producing.

Versace ALIAS Prototyping Center

After our tour of Zegna, we stopped in at the ALIAS factory to have a look at the latest Versace samples and prototypes. The center was founded in the late 70's by Gianni Versace, who wanted to have a place to focus on the creation of innovative new models. Versace has no real consistency in color, shape, silhouette, etc., because of their philosophy of innovation, and so there is a strong need for prototyping, which allows for the learning process in each new design. While ALIAS creates various prototypes for the upcoming collections, it creates one sample collection with some replication for sales campaigns around the world, in addition to some made-to-measure pieces for very special clients. There is a direct link to ALIAS from the design office in Milan, from which Donatella and her team send very detailed sketches for another team of patternmakers to translate. Most prototypes are made first from paper, then from canvas or another cheap materials that has the same fabric weight and similar movement to the final fabric desired. Prototypes and then samples are produced in size 38 long for testing and sales campaigns, and then another round of samples are made in size 42 as the basis for manufacturing. (The goal is to have a long, slender silhouette for sales, but to produce clothes that fit "real women" in the manufacturing process.)

There are three collections per season: a pre-, main, and runway collection. The last collection was inspired by a trip to Berlin where Donatella's design team came across the collage works of artist Tim Roeloffs. The artist was asked to study Versace designs and icons and blend his own inspiration from Berlin into a collage. The artist mixed traditional versace colors (bright yellow and pink) with industrial colors and images from Berlin, in addition to quirky components such as his and Donatella's dogs. The collage was transferred into a print for fabric, which the collections key dresses were made from. Aplica flowers inspired by 1960s wallpaper (which was frequently referenced by the late Gianni) were sewn onto the dresses to further the 3D element of the collage.

We were lucky enough to have a private fashion show by the lovely fit model, and caught a glimpse of the extensive archives located above the production floor. The archives contain little treasures from every collection throughout the history of the fashion house, and serve as inspiration for new garment models or as references to technical details.

More information on Tim Roeloffs and the collection can be found at http://www.wallpaper.com/fashion/tim-roeloffs-collaboration/2115

Factory visit to Zegna

Having recently become familiar with Zegna upon moving to Italy, I have been very impressed by their craftsmanship and elegance. Yesterday we took a side trip to the Zegna factory located little just over an hour outside Milan in a lovely town called Novara. As it is the last in the company to be redesigned, the factory was surprisingly dingy (traditional 3-story walk-up factory with no AC) for such a high quality production facility, as not only the Zegna suit jackets, but also jackets for licensed brands such as Versace, Gucci, Daniel, Yves Saint Laurent, and the almighty Tom Ford are made there. The same workers produce for all labels, although Tom Ford has some specifically devoted to his line, as it requires some very detailed processes. However, as part of their licensing agreement, Zegna designers never see the production facilities, preventing any risk of unethical intellectual property transfer from the other brands. The system of production is really interesting, because the typical men's suit jacket is made from over 160 (!) different pieces sewn together, taking on average 6 hours for production. The jackets have a structure that is created through stacking layers of canvas and other fabrics, providing both a strong form and flexibility. In high-quality suits, the "stacking" is achieved through a "canvasing" process, where the layers are sewn together. Lower quality suits use a "fusion" process, were glue is used instead of stitching to achieve the effect. One of the extra components in the Tom Ford suits are the extra canvasing layers around the breast, accentuating the appearance of pectoral muscles!

The process begins with fabric components, all of which are cut in Switzerland. Each designer brand sends their drawings and patterns, as well as fabrics to the factory where the fabrics are cut into the appropriate shapes. Most (75%) of these fabrics come from Zegna (which began as a textile manufacturer), but if synthetic fabrics are required, they are outsourced. Before construction begins with new materials, the seamstresses do several test experiments to determine whether the fabric is appropriate for suit orders. The jacket components are then put into boxes and delivered to the seamstresses with a Bill of Materials, telling her precisely what she needs to do with the material, the exact color thread to use, etc. A seamstress will only repeat a process 7 times, as Zegna wants the jackets to be of the highest quality, and frequent reproduction causes boredom and mistakes, while some repetition is needed to learn the process.

The jacket front is made in this way, and then the outer, visible layer is attached with a special machine that stitches identical rows of supportive threading that is invisible from the outside. A white thread is stitched throughout the jacket to pucker the material in some places that will need to hold a curve, and in general this temporary stitching holds the stacked layers in place until finishing occurs. After a quality check, the jacket is dropped through a laundry shoot from the third to the second floor, where it is picked up by the next cycle of workers. Here the shoulders are sewn in (these are NOT shoulder pads, but rather a layering of thicker canvas and padded fabric no thicker than 1 cm), and then the collar. Sleeves are outsourced to local manufacturers because the factory is too small, and this is the least technically complex component. These sleeves are attached after the buttonholes are carefully cut and stitched. This is an important detail as many men who own bespoke suits will unbutton the last two sleeve buttons to demonstrate that the suit is genuine.

Entering the final phases, the white thread that holds the layers in place is removed, a lining is added along with the ever important label (with the exception of Tom Ford's, which is done by hand), and the jacket is sent out to local artisans who work from home. These people will provide the finishing details by hand. For example, a Tom Ford suit jacket has a collar button hole that takes 30-45 minutes alone to stitch, and must be done by hand. If you take a close look at the inside of a jacket button hole, you will be able to see some inner layers of the stacking process. In this one Tom Ford button hole, the finishing occurs by hand in a cylindrical shape around the cut, preventing the exposure of interior layers.

When the jacket comes back from the domestic seamstresses, a final ironing takes place before the jackets are sent to the warehouse for shipment. The only remaining sartorial effects are white stitching in the shoulder line, which is removed when the jacket is purchased (this is more for marketing than anything else), and the light stitches that hold the Tom Ford button hole closed. Two quality checks are performed for stitching and details, and for the overall jacket on a sewing form.

As an aside, Versace is dressing Patrick Dempsey these days. We were particularly excited to see his size 48 Versace jackets being carefully constructed to order by seamstresses who had plastered his picture to any available surface near their sewing machines! Made to measure jackets like his can take up to 4 days to manufacture.

(Pictures from Zegna website and style.com)