Make it last. A working table for fashion and high crafts in Venice

At Ca ‘Sagredo we talk about high craftsmanship and ethical fashion at the Make it last conference

On October 25th, during the Venice Fashion Week, the fashion week in Venice, the theme of high craftsmanship and ethical fashion will be discussed at the Make It Last convention hosted at the Hotel Ca ‘Sagredo.

Organized by Veneziadavivere, the Management Department of Ca ‘Foscari University and Hotel Ca’ Sagredo, Make it Last presents Venice as an international laboratory for designing new lifestyles.

Make it Last
Thursday, October 25th
Ca ‘Sagredo Hotel

The Make It Last program: considerations on the themes of handmade, ethical and slow fashion

The Made in Italy and the contemporary

The high craftsmanship is not just a successful business but a real cultural project that matches the current need for a green and sustainable fashion. This will be discussed by the masters of the Made in Italy and international fashion and by the entrepreneurs of the high Venetian craftsmanship.

Craftsmanship for Venice’s rebirth

The restoration of the Gran Caffè Quadri in Piazza San Marco was imagined by Philippe Starck and commissioned by some Venetian artisans. The architect Marino Folin has coordinated the most masterful Venetian workers in what can be defined as ‘a great cultural operation that has recovered the substratum of the Venetian craft production’.

TheHomo Faber exhibition on the island of San Giorgio, an international operation of the Richemond Group, displays, in an area of four thousand square meters, a world where high craftsmanship, design and technology are the basis of the success of the small entrepreneurs and the major luxury brands.

Thanks to its history as a city of arts and world trade, Venice is a place of priceless artisans: fabrics, lace, glass and jewels have been made for centuries by the expert hands of the master craftsmen, attentive interpreters of tradition and modernity.

In this scenario Venice becomes a laboratory where the merry encounter between art and business has generated a commercial empire that has lasted for centuries, a place of unique and unchanged beauty, which has attracted the best international minds.

On March 19th, 1474, the Republic of Venice created the Intellectual Property with a law that protects inventors and patents, and shows how to attract talent was a strategy for the city’s success: ‘We have men of great talent, able to invent and discover ingenious devices: and it is in view of the greatness and virtue of our city that we will try to bring here more and more men like this.’

It is always the partnership between governance, culture and business that has created the conditions for the proliferation of arts, inventions and business and international cultural projects such as the Venice Biennale: quantum leaps that generate evolution and well-being for the city, for its citizens and for all the territory. How can we create, now, a new opportunity for the rebirth for the city?

In Venice the fashion is ‘slow’

Make it right, make it last: according to the latest studies made by the world institutions for the protection of the planet, the fashion industry can be polluting as much as the oil one.

If transforming the perception of the product to counterbalance the ‘fast’ fashion and tending to zero waste are the commitments of the fashion world together with an ethical production and the use of green materials, craftsmanship and tailoring are the answer to it.

High quality products last for a long time and are not thrown away but handed down with veneration; they carry forward our culture and our stories, tell us of a territory and stimulate a conscious and therefore sustainable use.

The fabric that covers the walls of the Gran Caffè Quadri is the work of the ancient Tessitura Bevilacqua; here Philippe Starck has reinterpreted the oldest design of the Venetian atelier with spaceships, satellites and the faces of the Alajmo brothers, transforming a symbol of the past into an ironic message: this is living art.

Craftsmanship, tailoring and collaboration between Venetian historical companies and contemporary designers is one of the steps for that city’s rebirth, promoted by the Venice Fashion Week.

Green fashion: perspectives and implications of an ethical fashion

Contemporary design, craftsmanship, natural materials, ethical production processes, innovative fabrics, platforms for responsible purchases, the social and spiritual implications of the new fashion course. At the table: Silvia Del Prior of Dress The Change, a platform created with Banca Etica to allow consumers to learn and discover the virtuous reality of fashion. Gaia Peruzzi Lecturer in fashion and style analysis at Sapienza in Rome, Imama Project and Poethica, two emerging brands, expression of the green revolution that is transforming the fashion world.

Attending the conference:

Laura Scarpa, Lorenzo Cinotti, Vladi Finotto (Management Department Ca ‘Foscari), Monica Calcagno, Lorenza Lain, Rebecca Ballestra, Stefano Micelli (Professor Management Ca’ Foscari), Councilor Elena Donazzan – Region, Councilor Paola Mar – Municipality, Emma Ursich – Generali, Rodolfo Bevilacqua of Antica Tessitura Bevilacqua, Raffaele Dessì Pietro Longhi Atelier, Martina Vidal Burano Lace, Sandro Zara Tabarrificio Veneto, Veraroad (Florentine brand of silk dresses that collaborates with Burano lace), Daniela Giacometti (designer who created Apart project on show for Venice Fashion Week), Lorenza Lain (director Hotel Ca ‘sagredo), Marino Folin, (architect, former Rector Iuav, responsible for the restoration of Gran Caffè Quadri with Philippe Starck), Francesca Venturini President of the Delegation FAI Veneto, Igor Zanti IED Director, Anna Fiscale creator of the Quid Project: Fashion and ethical fashion, Rebecca Ballestra creator of the Festival for the Earth, the international forum on sustainability, Virginia Grozio, Silvia Del Priore for Dress The Change, a platform created with Banca Etica to allow consumers to be informed and discover the virtuous realities of fashion. Gaia Peruzzi Lecturer in Fashion and Style Analysis at the Sapienza University of Rome, Maria Antonietta d’Onghia for the Imama brand, Luis Toniutti for the Poethica brand.

7 pm
Fashion show: Imama Project and Poethica

Foto Marta Formentello