The key points
- Sustainability, digital and training are three key challenges for the fashion industry
- The 2022 turnover will recover the 2019 levels but the unknown cost weighs on profitability
- The textile fashion accessories sector must overcome internal divisions and present itself united
“Diversity is the strength of Made in Italy, but in this critical moment it is necessary to put aside particular interests in order to affirm the competitiveness of the Italian fashion system at an international level. By now the games, on many fronts such as those of digitization and sustainability, are played at a European level where the Italian fashion industry weighs a lot, but must be compact ». To express the key element of the approach of Ercole Botto Poala, textile entrepreneur with Reda and former president of Milano Unica (2016-2020), it would suffice to say that unity makes competitiveness. He tells it in his first interview after his appointment as president of Confindustria Moda, a federation of which he was already vice president.
He begins his mandate in a difficult moment between rising production costs, government crisis, war. What are the most pressing challenges for fashion companies?
The issues on the plate are many: from energy costs to inflation. Different themes that risk putting the social partners in opposition, forgetting that, on the other hand, we are dealing with common challenges. We have to create a system: at the moment there is a great demand for Italian products, but this cultural inability to work as a team makes us not very credible. As happened, for example, with the government crisis.
The euro-dollar exchange rate favors exports which already in the first part of the year drove the sector turnover to + 16% over 2021. What can we expect?
It is a positive moment for the fashion sector in terms of volumes: there has been a convinced recovery. However, there are too many unknowns on the horizon that do not allow entrepreneurs to understand, for example, what the final price of the product will be. Or what the consumer’s reaction will be to the rising cost of living. So if in terms of turnover we will probably recover the 2019 levels (about 100 billion euros for the Tma, ndr), profitability will be lower. Hence the need, once again, to come together to ask for support from the credit system.