black for other clerics. In the 17th century, Italian fashion fell into decline when the designs of Spanish, English and French courts took the lead. In France, French fashion became the most popular in Europe. Despite this decline, however, there was some fashion and clothing activity, especially in Rome, Milan and Florence. In the mid-19th century cheaper silk began to be imported to Milan from Asia and the black death damaged silk and wine production. More land was subsequently given over to industrialization. Textile production was followed by metal and mechanical and furniture manufacture. Some of the first Italian fashion houses such as Bulgari, Prada, Gucci and Ferragamo were founded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was not until the 1950s and 60s that Italian fashion retook its position of importance in the fashion world. The excellence and quality of Italian machinery for the textile industry as well as the technological innovations resulting from Italian research, state-of-the-art Italian made products, but with a watchful eye constantly on eco-sustainability, make Italian textile highly competitive. However, Italian companies will be coordinated by ICE - the Italian Trade Promotion Agency, in collaboration with ACIMIT - the Association of Italian Textile Manufacturers the professional body representing the textile machinery sector to make the textile industry sustainable.
EVOLUTION OF PRATO FASHION AND
TEXTILE DISTRICT
Prato is one of the areas in Central and North Italy which shows successfully its modern industrial growth. In 19th and 20th centuries, the industrialization process underwent a rapid acceleration after World War II and had been fully established by the 1970s. Thanks to its development it became the most European important textile and fashion centre - a prototype of a modern industrial district. One of its features is its specialization and distribution of work among small business firms. The development of the textile industry in Prato saw the interlinking and overlapping of several different “models of competition” in terms of organization, products and markets. Prato began to specialize in textiles in the 12th century, when garment manufacturing was regulated by the Wool Merchants’ Guild. The political and economic decline experienced in Italy during the 16th and 17th centuries caused a decline the in textile businesses, which resumed in the late 18th century with the production of knitted caps made for Arab markets. A significant contribution to industrial expansion was also due to the lower costs of carded wool processing, caused by the gradually increasing production of recovered wool obtained from shredding old clothes and industrial scraps said “combing”.
Between the postwar period and the early 1950s, the outlets towards low-level standard pro-deduction markets for India, Africa, etc. rapidly disappeared.
The Prato district became more powerful during the 1970s. The emerging of fashion as a mass phenomenon, together with higher salaries and the revolution in customs, marked a historical division in the clothing market and the demand became more fragmented, differentiated, unsteady and seasonal.
These variables disrupted the production and distribution chain forcing the structures to be- come more flexible, responsive and agile.
During that period the Prato district underwent a fundamental transformation, from a product-oriented, wool-processing district to a market-oriented, fashion/textile district. The re-orientation of its competitive identity in terms of “satisfied needs” cleared the way for a considerable increase in the variety of products and production technologies. During the seventies new possibilities were explored and developed, often with a pioneering spirit, in textiles (patterned combed yarns for knitwear, knitted fabrics, furs, coated fabrics, flock fabrics, etc.) and in non-wool fibres, both natural and synthetic.
The second half of the 1980s proved a difficult period. The district was forced to dispose of the excess of investments in carded wool made during the previous decades, since the market for those products was rapidly dwindling. During that period, 28% of the workers lost their jobs and 37% of the firms went out of business. The crisis would be absorbed by the local system in the 1990s, thanks to a strong tertiary sector. Anyway, textiles remained the driving force of the Prato area all through the nineties.
A comparison between 1991 and 2001 census data shows the importance that the textile industry continued to have in Prato’s economy: the number of workers in the textile and clothing sector was 50.333 in 1991 and 48.098 in 2001.
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