It’s easy to say sustainability: it’s the most used word in the world of fashion (and not only) for over a year. With equal ease, many of the novelties on display at the Milan fashion week are defined as sustainable. It is more difficult to explain how to get to a sustainable product without raising its price and without changing its quality. It does Giovanna Furlanetto, president of Furla, knight of labor and at the same time champion of understatement. But for the Re-Candy project he is happy to expose himself.
The way of designing to be redesigned
«For Furla, sustainability is a path to be taken step by step, which began with an awareness of myself and of all the people who work in the company – explains the daughter of the company’s founder, born in 1927 in Bologna -. We are not talking about small adjustments or seasonal novelties, but about a change in the way of designing, producing and consuming ».
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Candy (candy, in English) is one of Furla’s best-selling models: born ten years ago, now it becomes Re-Candy. «We studied it according to the principles of the circular economy with the support of Nativa, a company specialized in the themes of“ regeneration ”- explains Giovanna Furlanetto -. Re-Candy is made of recycled plastic and all the elements are designed from a sustainable point of view, from the label in FSC certified paper to the backpack that contains it, in recycled cotton dyed with natural colors. The next project is a leather born from the regeneration of processing waste ». Among the passions of the president of Furla there is art and in particular contemporary art: with the homonymous foundation she awards young artists every year and in Milan she works with the museum of the twentieth century and the GAM.
Art accompanies changes
What does art have to do with the Re-Candy project? “Very. First, because after the presentation to the press we have scheduled three days with free admission for the “artistic” installation dedicated to the capsule, which tells about sustainability – replies Giovanna Furlanetto -. I also believe that art is necessary in this era of changes, uncertainties, fears. Because it opens the mind and shows unpredictable crossings between worlds, past and present, and unexpected combinations of cultures ».
The model factory in Tuscany
In the midst of the pandemic, six months ago, Furla inaugurated a model factory in Tuscany, perhaps the most sustainable in Italy. The company and its president have also always been at the forefront of welfare and open to talents from all over the world, in the name of diversity and inclusiveness. After all, projects like Re-Candy are not surprising, but they fit into a vision that comes from afar. And (also) for this reason they are more credible.