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ERCOLE BOTTO POALA

Jackets, eyewear and fabrics. Confindustria Moda is a reference point for the whole Italian industry and, in July 2022, Ercole Botto Poala was appointed at the head of the confederation following Claudio Marenzi and Cirillo Marcolin. 51 years old, MD of Reda, Botto Poala has also been the President of Milano Unica for nearly five years. You are the first President of Confindustria Moda representing the fashion industry’s upstream supply chain. Do you see it as a recognition of the role played by the Italian textile industry? Confindustria Moda was established as a federation to protect the supply chain that made the Italian Textile, Fashion and Accessory Industry great across the world. Our role is to safeguard and promote all that creative and technical know-how which, in Italy, produces wealth, culture and social growth. I would like to thank my predecessors who worked to promote the entire supply chain: from textiles to shoewear, from leather to goldsmithing, from furs to eyewear. Supply chain: is it still intact after the pandemic or has Covid wiped out some links? On the whole, it is still intact, although Covid and the rise in energy prices have caused many small and medium-sized companies to shut down. All in all, however, owing also to the close collaboration with public institutions, we have been able to provide public aid to the companies, such as extraordinary redundancy fund, which protected the workers and the know-how that has grown over the years. The end of 2022 brought a new government: do you expect a change of strategy towards the fashion industry or will the work done so far be continued? I hope for a policy in continuity with that of the Draghi Government, which was aware of the needs of Italy’s productive system and had plans for the country’s development. It is too soon to say, but it seems that the Meloni Government is going in this direction in many respects. I hope it will give Italy the political stability it needs, and also because, for us industrialists, it is quite difficult to make long-term plans if the government people we interact with change every year and a half. What are Confindustria Moda’s top three priorities for 2023? Innovation, internationalization and training. Innovation as both investments in digitization processes that make companies more productive and competitive, and sustainability, in order to project them into the market of the future, making them more resilient and less susceptible of variations in the prices of raw materials and energy. Internationalization because it is crucial to keep this trend going and strengthen our presence in all markets: there is a huge demand for the “Made in Italy” and we need to be able to meet it. Training, because within 2026, we will need about 90 thousand professional figures, ranging from the more traditional, such as model makers, to the most innovative, like e-commerce and sustainability managers. We have to keep working on closing the mismatch between the labour market demand and the supply of the educational system, in order

"Le priorità del mondo della moda per il 2023 sono innovazione, mercati esteri e formazione. C'è forte richiesta di made in Italy"

Ercole Botto Poala

Milano Unica

to reduce youth unemployment and allow companies to hire talented people who can lead the new stage of the Textile, Fashion and Accessory Industry. There is, however, a basic consideration that we have to keep in mind: our supply chain consists mostly of small and medium-sized companies which cannot face the future alone. It is only by speaking with one voice, as a system, that will be able to seize the chances coming our way and find concrete solutions to the complex problems we are faced with. And the reason why the seven major associations of the Textile, Fashion and Accessory Industry decided to confederate in the form of Confindustria Moda is exactly to create this synergy. How long will it take for the fashion industry to reconnect with the farthest markets, such as China, or with those more conditioned by the war, like Russia? It is impossible to make forecasts right now. As far as China is concerned, it depends on the pandemic, but the situation there is very complex because of the vaccine, which seems less effective than ours. As for Russia, it depends on when and how the war will end. But the other foreign markets show significant dynamism, both within the EU and extra-EU, in particular, United States, Korea and Arab Emirates, which have reached double-figure growth trends, even higher than in the pre-pandemic period. A jump back into the past: you were the man behind the choice of bringing the date of Milan Unica forward from September to July. Did you expect the appreciation you received and to be “imitated” by the whole European trade show system?. Milano Unica is a trade show conceived, planned and run by entrepreneurs coming from different districts. It is designed to meet the customers’ needs: we decided to bring the date forward because of their requests. The choice, quite daring at the beginning, proved to be so successful that other European trade shows followed in our wake: our choice was applauded and found widespread approval because we proved to be able to keep in step with the ongoing changes of the fashion world.

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