Fashion Micro-Enterprises In LONDON BERLIN MILAN Phase 2 This project is part of the AHRC funded programme titled CREATe, based in Glasgow University, Law School, with Goldsmiths University of London as a partner. For further information see www.create.ac.uk The research on fashion micro-enterprises has been undertaken with further support from Goldsmiths University of London CONTENTS PHASE II MILAN: MAY 2017 BERLIN: JULY 2017 BIOS JANUARY - MAY 2017 The second phase of work for been working closely with Marte CREATe, has entailed a new Hentschel in Berlin who has round of interviews, events and made the move in the course of activities focusing on the impact the research from heading up a of digital online transformations producer services company (not- across the sector, especially in for-proft) to taking the lead in retail. Our intentions this time the digital platform (Sourcebook. were to work with a smaller com) specifcally for fashion number of designers and designers which she has founded companies in each city and and is now extending in a variety seek to gain a clear sense of of ways see www.sourcebook.eu how the signifcant changes Once again one of our insights away from physical location during the three years of selling (ie shops) to online research is that added research retail were impacting on the value lies in creating an active sector, particularly the micro- and engaged team-spirit businesses and those working especially from the networking in a start-up framework. Facing events. The knowledge transfer some obstacles, as ever, with here benefts participants in questions of access to the big unexpected and unpredictable players we had hoped to involve ways. This should become in the Phase 2 work, we have evident in the fnal part of this nevertheless worked hard to blog where we provide some pursue contacts with former bio-profles which highlight employees, while also building the directions taken by our a signifcant bank of secondary network members in the last data with companies such as 9 months. It seems that the Asos and Farfetch in the UK, Yoox CREAte project has helped some in Milan, and Zalando in Berlin. In of our participants to crystallise the cases of Asos and Zalando we interesting career decisions are still actively seeking personal and manage to organise new connections with the companies directions in the feld. which are global leaders in the feld. Meanwhile we have been fortunate in gaining access to leading online fashion companies such as Not Just A Label which until a few months ago was based in London and has recently moved to LA. Likewise we have MILAN PHASE 2 EVENT: However this blog really begins kind of fnancial stability. While with our Phase 2 Milan event lucky to have workspace in London which took place on March 1st and access to the Italian market 2017. Here our intentions were (including a current contract with to introduce our new and ongoing a leading company in Florence) research on digital e-commerce nevertheless Carlo Volpi felt all the in order to prompt discussion stresses of being both an avant- with the research community garde designer and someone in Milan including some of the having to work in a hard-edged leading fgures in the area such commercial world. The other as Prof. Laura Bovone (Universita designer who took part, Milan- Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, and based Ela Siromascenko talked Dr Marianna D’Ovidio (Universita at length about the more bespoke di Bari). In addition we invited approach she had developed with some young academics and post- individual clients who nowadays doctoral researchers such as Dr with her strong online presence Guilia Mentisieri, Ecole des Haute came from different places across Etudes en Sciences Sociale, the world. Paris) to join the conversations lasting into the evening and beyond (see planned publications Figure 1. Poster for the below). We were provided event in Milan generous space at the University of Milan in the magnifcent hall (Sala Lauree) thanks to Prof. Adam Arvidsson whose students along with some Masters students from the Universita Cattolica provided the audience SPACES OF FASHION: DIGITAL, TECHNOLOGIES, AND LABOUR PROCESS for the afternoon event. We (the MARCH 1ST 2017. MILAN UNIVERSITY, STATALE organisers Prof McRobbie, Dr Dan Sala Lauree, Facoltà di Scienze Politiche, Economiche e Sociali, Strutt and Dr Bettina Springer) Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Conservatorio 7. Milan. decided also on this occasion to give more time to the designers present to discuss the issues emerging from the e-commerce revolution in fashion design. Carlo Volpi an Italian by birth but 2pm – 2.15 Introduction and Welcome: Prof. Angela McRobbie and Prof. Adam Arvidsson also a graduate of Goldsmiths 2.15 – 3pm Reporting on CREATe Phase 2 Research: London, Berlin and Milan. and the Royal College of Art Dr Dan Strutt, Dr Bettina Springer and Dr Carolina Bandinelli. Chair: Adam Arvidsson. 3pm – 3.30 COFFEE BREAK and now working with partners 3.30 – 4.15 Designer roundtable discussion with Carlo Volpi and Ela Siromascenko. in Milan spoke about the sheer Chair: Dan Strutt and Carolina Bandinelli hardship of trying to keep on 4.15 – 5.45 PANEL: FASHION ECONOMY IN THE DIGITAL ERA Chair: Angela McRobbie • Dr Marianna D’Ovidio (University of Bari) ‘Current Issues of Fashion and Urban Creative top of his business with so many Economy’ • Giannino Malossi (Milan) ‘State of Fashion Economy in Digital World’, changes in the retail landscape. • Prof. Laura Bovone (Universita Cattolica Milan) ‘Sharing Fashion: A New Responsible Creativity’ He also described the diffculties • Guiditta Passini (Fashion Consultant) 'Fashion and Sustainability: re-shaping the fashion designers like himself who are industry in the digital era'. visible, even well-known in the 5.45 – 6.15 Plenary and Comments: Angela McRobbie, Adam Arvidsson and Laura Bovone. 6.15 – 7.30 Aperitivi in the bar. Vogue fashion world but who are 8.30pm Dinner for speakers and guests still struggling to achieve any The frst panel of the day to fashion undermining the strong comprised 20 minute and increasingly bland commercial presentations form the CREATe image of recent years. The day team working on Phase 2 then ended with a plenary debate interviews. Dan Strutt presented which included a representative an overview of fndings so far from London College of Fashion with particular emphasis on the Dr Allessandra Vecchio along with NJAL work and their platform Laura Bovone, Adam Arvidsson profling the work of up to 200 and Angela McRobbie. Overall this designers from across the world. afternoon event helped to clarify the Bettina Springer updated the direction of the fnal phase of our work she has been doing on project. It confrmed a sense that the Berlin-based company the fashion industry is undergoing Zalando, and Carolina Bandinelli substantial transformation and demonstrated once again her that one aspect of this is that it strong ethnographic skills is being opened up to newcomers discussing her meetings with from different, non-elite and non- young Italian designers and standard entrance points. The top- how they recounted the impact down managerialism of recent years digital fashion was having on and the leading positions held by their working lives. Later in the the best-known fgures and the afternoon we had presentations leading companies has somehow from Marianna D’Ovidio where been undermined at least partly by she discussed the conceptual the participatory dynamic of digital framing within urban sociology technology and social media. We for her longitudinal studies of will summarise this shift as the fashion labour in Milan. This was return of a ‘socio-cultural fashion followed by Laura Bovone who imagination’. described the very original work she has been carrying out with Figure 2. fashion alternative groups in Carlo & Ella at CREATe Event in Milan Milan who make extensive use of social media, and fnally, fashion consultant Guiditta Passini discussed her own expertise in regard to bringing sustainable issues to the foreground with the companies who are her clients in Milan and elsewhere in Italy. Giannino Malossi, who has worked as a senior researcher for the CREATe research from the start, focused on the wider issues which were bringing a new kind of expertise into fashion and also challenging the authority of the leading companies, as well as the well-known magazines such as Vogue. Malossi argued that in effect ‘the cultural factor’ was returning Figure 3, 4. CREATe designers at Milan event Figure 5-7. Laura Bovone & Giannino Malossi during the CREATe Event in Milan The main activities following which will be written in the next the Milan event have involved nine months. From the start of consolidating the outcomes and 2017 other invitations have also planning dissemination as we head come our way, including one to towards the conclusion period of take part in a seminar on Design the CREATe project. In addition we and Inequality hosted at the LSE have each spend time preparing International Inequalities Institute academic papers for presentation (British Sociological Association at conferences (see below). Having Event, Design and the Social realised after the Milan event that February 7th 2017). Since then there are colleagues in France Angela McRobbie has been invited and Italy as well as in Germany to submit an overview article from investigating similar themes of the CREATe work for a projected precarious work in and around the Special Issue of Sociological Review edges of the urban fashion design (currently under consideration). industry and also undertaking research on digital labour in the We have also been working on the sector we have proposed a Special data we have gathered fnding the Issue of the Journal of Urban best way of archiving it and putting Cultural Studies to include some of it into a format which will allow the already existing CREATe team easy access for when we embark on and also two of the wider network.