The lost myth of holiday shopping

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A late July afternoon at the Metropole beach resort in Santa Margherita Ligure, or “Santa,” as we Milanese say. We grew up there and no longer know where to hide to avoid the so-called fashion “takeovers.” Fashion, forced to “brand” itself—that is, to remind the world that it exists and is super cool— has for some years now begun to make deals with the beaches of the truly but mostly supposedly rich, and in any case, this year, they are desolately empty, carpeting them with designer sponges, cushions, umbrellas, and tents . Sometimes it does so with a certain attention to the genius loci—although in elegant times the color scheme of the place was yellow, one can't complain about the green print chosen by Dolce & Gabbana for the Carillon di Paraggi, which matches the famous shade of the cove's water—sometimes in total disregard for the history of the place and that concept that fashion fills press releases with, the famous heritage, and this is still the case with Dolce & Gabbana who, after paving Cala di Volpe, a recently restored 1960s masterpiece by Jacques Couëlle, with cart-like prints, were showered with social media abuse by many design and architecture connoisseurs, horrified by the contrast between the soft, artful lines of that sculpture-like hotel and the pseudo-Sicilian hubbub of the duo who for years have also been covering refrigerators and coffee makers with the same motif.

But back to the Metropole, with its old-fashioned atmosphere where children are forbidden from using the pool in the park because it's where people relax and read, and for the noise, there's the beach where smoking is prohibited by the mayor's decree. As I climb down the steps between the rocks for a dip, I'm approached by a foreign tourist with a lot of lifts, a bonnet, and makeup—yes, on the shoreline—who complains about overtourism and, "since I don't look Italian to her," wants to join in. In view of this article, I smile vaguely. She says she's been staying at the beach hotel for a week and that she doesn't like anything : not the shops that now mostly sell Chinese junk, nor the only famous and historic grocery store, Seghezzo, which in addition to being incredibly expensive also sells things she doesn't understand like dried porcini mushrooms and sugar-coated almonds that look like beach stones, nor the lack of public evening entertainment because it's clear to her that life, or rather "the nightlife," takes place in the villas, at most at Covo or in certain trattorias halfway up the hill whose addresses she doesn't know and wouldn't know who to go with. Furthermore, she considers monstrous, and she is not the only one, the two cruise ships "oveseas", anchored offshore , which just as she speaks to me are unloading hundreds of tourists from small motorized overcraft onto the seafront promenade, and from which the same tourists, grouped in groups of twenty to thirty units, are led like oxen on a tour of Portofino, a tour in the true sense because by order of the mayor Matteo Viacava, recently reconfirmed despite the disputes over the alleged sale of counterfeit bags that took place in a bar he owns and many other various protests by residents on the mountain to which we dedicated an article a couple of years ago, you cannot stop , but only walk because the small square is the size of a handkerchief, in addition of course to not being able to sit on the ground to eat and walk along Calata Marconi in a bathing suit or bare-chested, which in a civilized society should be normal practice but lately is considered a measure of social exclusion.

When asked directly, the accent is unmistakable. The woman confirms she's from Australia, Melbourne to be precise, so I ask her if she doesn't see the paradox of complaining about procedures she's the first to follow, given that between planes and cars, even in favorable time zones, it's a two-day trip from her home to the Tigullio Gulf. She knows this, she realizes, but as the grandson of Italians, she feels she has a modicum of rights over the country's preservation, like Alberto Sordi, an emigrant looking for a pure Claudia Cardinale. Luckily, she doesn't add that she's toying with the dream of applying for citizenship, otherwise I'd reach out and push her under the water and keep her there for a while. The woman actually harbors much more materialistic dreams; she's simply annoyed to return home empty-handed. "You can't do any proper shopping anymore, and I'm not saying Versace or Armani, just something typical and special at a fair price," she mutters. Of course, he's right about this: no one wants to buy clothes on vacation that they can easily find in their hometowns, even though major brands have been busy for years creating small, special collections—or "limited editions," as the new illiterates call them—sold in their flagship boutiques in the famous resort or directly in the beach shop. And it's not even a new thing, because that's how Emilio Pucci was born, with a small room set up in the late 1940s in the Canzone del Mare factory and the "Emilio di Capri" label, which is worth its weight in gold today.

The point is that the combination of the liberalization of trade and mass tourism, further massified after the pandemic, has led on the one hand to a proliferation of focaccerie, spaghetti shops and branded ice cream parlors that produce nothing but receive frozen ice cream from the parent company, to be defrosted day by day and stirred like lime under the ecstatic gazes of foreigners who think that's the "mantecatura" (I posted a photo of the two cruise monsters on social media, dozens of friends responded with shots of the atrocities they find under their houses in the morning in the Cinque Terre or Ischia, like plastic cups with leftovers of trofie with pesto and vomited pizza) and on the other to a multiplication of both Made in China underwear chains and luxury brands that, despite the industry associations producing a study every two months on the value of tourism in Italy and the need to develop a new generation of artisans who support and defend it, are distorting the brands the streets and shops that once made Portofino or Ischia or Capri inimitable are identical.

All this happened, it goes without saying, by driving out the craftsmen, which doesn't just mean ceramists, but also carpenters, mattress makers, upholsterers, glassmakers : in Santa, the wait to replace a glass is a couple of months, in the best of cases. The Italy of excellence has not had the foresight nor the power of the two aristocratic clans that have owned London for time immemorial, the Cadogans and the Grosvenors with their respective family offices. In order not to distort the vast real estate areas under their jurisdiction, they reserve the right to select the businesses that request to rent spaces and shopfronts by product mix, avoiding replicating the same services a few meters away as happens, for example, in the center of Milan or Rome, where sandwich shops and shoe shops alternate like the shield and dagger shops and rotten fish shops in the famous Asterix parody on the grotesque consequences of gentrification (in this case, "Asterix and the Kingdom of the Gods": dated 1971, Goscinny and Uderzo had seen it coming). The latest hyper-branding concerns Corso Umberto I, in Taormina. The theory of global brands is now almost complete, while two years ago the famous Saro, which sold artisanal porcelain on the ground floor and tasteful vintage bric-a-brac in the basement, also sold its shop to a chain, to be precise Gutteridge, owned by the Capri group which is currently finalizing the sale of Versace to Prada. It is now impossible to enjoy a granita at Bam Bar: ever since it was featured in an episode of that manifesto of Third Millennium-style tourism, the HBO series “The White Lotus,” for an almond with cream and brioche bun, always served only at tables, no take-out, you can stand in line for up to three hours , a practice to which Americans submit with happy resignation, amid laughter and squeals, unlike us Europeans who consider it beneath our cultural status, thus depriving ourselves of a granita.

But the truth is that, even without the Milan prosecutor's office's investigation into gangmastering, which is inflicting reputational damage on the national fashion system from which it will struggle to recover, Made in Italy luxury is experiencing its worst period since the irruption of fast fashion twenty years ago forced it to rethink its production methods and timing . The gradual shift in the strategic focus of major brands toward tourism, however, doesn't seem to be helping, because a large portion of that immense mass that has poured into small Europe after Covid, and Italy in particular, is not only uninterested in the brands that, if they wanted and as far as the United States is concerned, net of duties, they could easily find back home, but they cannot afford, especially after the dizzying price increases of the last two years have made them unapproachable to them and offensive to those who, on the other hand, could shop without a care in the world but don't aspire to gullible status.

Anyone who knows the value of money doesn't want to be fooled, Brunello Cucinelli has been saying for some time. He's one of the very few Italian brands to have achieved significant profits even in the first half of this year (to be precise, revenues of €684 million, up 10.2 percent), along with the Prada group, which has seen similar growth, thanks in part to Miu Miu's roughly 50 percent jump. Excluding the aspirational customers who are the reason for its success, indeed its foundation, from fashion was a suicidal decision , as many of us have been writing for at least two years; it was a choice dictated by profound ignorance of the historical dynamics, of the ultimate reasons for the birth of fashion as we know it, and the consequences haven't finished yet; in reality, they've only just begun.

Last June, at Pitti Uomo, with Banca Ifis, we presented the first edition of an international study on the progressive shift in consumption from fashion toward so-called "experiential" tourism, in Italy also toward health. Yes, we're getting older, and in addition to having closets filled with aches and pains from forty years of overshopping, which we now dispose of in vintage shops, we're also riddled with ailments. One finding from the survey that deserved further comment—and I'll do so now—concerned the different options chosen by those who declared they were spending less on fashion (a per capita differential of 2.2%) to devote it to "leisure": even before personal well-being, there were—or rather, are arriving—travel (35 percent), food and wine to enjoy at home, the legacy of the pandemic (26 percent), and, excellent news, "art and culture," primarily exhibitions and cinema. At the same time, and although young people are obviously the primary target audience for fashion, the research clearly showed that they are increasingly interested in vintage, on the one hand, and in the quality and history of what they buy, on the other. This includes, of course, labor protection, which means paying manufacturing a fair price; sometimes, an extra five euros an hour would be enough. Therefore, (genuine) culture, (effective) quality, (verifiable) ethics.

For many brands, the shortsightedness that has guided the decisions of too many managers in recent years—the belief that, after all, selling cars, ice cream, or fashion beyond a certain size is the same thing, and that stressing revenues with multiples of 40-50% is the natural consequence of brand value—will unfortunately equate to closure or virtual disappearance. While we are already seeing, and this is excellent news, the growth of many independent brands that aren't aiming for global domination but are content to be what they are: creative, well-made, mass-produced, and affordable garments and accessories . Not couture, not luxury, but well-crafted, with a strong design content. A few names: the Swedish Toteme, Tove , the brand of two London friends Camille Perry and Holly Wright, and the French handbag brand Polène , which, not surprisingly, has already attracted the interest of LVMH.

In recent days, at the half-year financial statement presentation, LVMH CFO Cécile Cabanis—the same manager who, regarding the judicial administration imposed on Loro Piana for failing to monitor the supply chain, withdrew, asserting that gang-mastering is a problem for the Italian industry, and received a harsh stance from Confindustria Moda in response—announced that in the near future, I'll summarize, the conglomerate will divest itself of its less profitable brands. Rumor has it that the first to go up for sale will be Marc Jacobs, the brand that, for nearly two generations, has represented the gateway to fashion for millions of enthusiasts, including the very young. This is without even considering the achievements of the American designer, who in a few weeks will present in Venice the documentary tribute by his dearest friend, Sofia Coppola, to seventeen years as creative director of Louis Vuitton. For example, it was his idea to collaborate with Takashi Murakami, which has been replicated and put back on sale in recent months, apparently with good results.

The success of fashion over the last fifty years, and even the last hundred and fifty in fact, is due to the sole reason that throngs of people with a little money but no taste needed reassurance about the wisdom of their choices . Fashion was successful because it dressed Madame Verdurins, not the Duchesses of Guermantes who gave orders to Charles Frederick Worth and knew when the time was right to turn to Paquin: the "brand," the label, has always been used for this purpose, accompanied along its path to success by couturiers who were often brilliant, promoters of social change, or intelligent debunkers, such as Demna and his wrap skirts made from hotel towels, a huge mockery of bourgeois obsessions that will soon enter museums like Marcel Duchamp's pissoir, its forerunner and at the same time its counterpart in art.

But the simple truth is that decades of designer ready-to-wear have severely reduced, if not eliminated, most people's ability to distinguish quality and craftsmanship that were once commonplace: our grandmothers walked into a fabric shop and could distinguish the different qualities of a wool crepe or a shantung. Try it today, in the few surviving fabric shops. Luxury has taken unpredictable turns and, except for a few rare cases—those that haven't generated €3 billion in revenues—has transformed into a mass market supported by good marketing and excellent communication. At the same time, fewer and fewer people possess the culture and knowledge to recognize and properly value the craftsmanship they demand and the Made in Italy label, which is also being struck at the heart by brands' inability to control the supply chains of even 2,000 suppliers.

Everyone, however—and the Australian from the Metropole is proof of this—is looking for "typicality," exclusivity, and "local color." For example, there are always ladies interested in the small "Pesce Pazzo" boutique, a label taken from a nursery rhyme her grandmother, a famous underwater photographer, used to tell her. The boutique opened by young Laura Mendolia in the family beach resort facing Isola Bella, at the foot of Taormina. Not many, however, are willing to spend five hundred euros for a small, handmade basket with velvet handles and edges and coral fringes, which isn't even an excessive price considering the workmanship and the value of the stones. She is—or perhaps was—willing to spend three times that much for a straw basket with D&G logo pompoms. Also in Taormina, Pietro Paolo Longhitano, another brilliant thirty-year-old who a few years ago acquired a jewelry brand that was all the rage in the 1960s, Coppola & Toppo, has chosen to entrust one of Mario Dell'Oglio's boutiques on the main street with the sale of a series of handmade enameled jewelry: the proximity to the big brands helps him strengthen his reputation among those who, on their own, would not be able to do so.

For this reason, and naturally, first and foremost for its social impact, as it will include support spaces for vulnerable families, the Recreos project for the regeneration of the area around Via Palazzuolo and Via Maso Finiguerra, in Florence's historic center , takes on even greater significance. This project, which CRF Foundation President Bernabò Bocca calls "its historic artisanal vocation," has been lost in recent decades due to progressive degradation, which is also evident from a safety perspective, as Mayor Sara Furnaro acknowledges. After signing the agreement with the Municipality last May, the Foundation is selecting young artisans to be assigned, for the three, and for the energy sector, as part of an architectural plan designed by Luca Dini and his team, and which, for the technical aspects, will be developed in collaboration with the municipal offices. It's painful to say, but the proliferation of small late-night liquor stores and all that third-rate commerce that, in cities with a major tourist vocation, drives out local businesses to serve day visitors and nightlife crowds , often doesn't just deface the urban fabric, increasing the number of vacant, abandoned, or poorly replaced shops with dubious vendors, but also leads to a default on public protection, which is precisely what happened to the central Via Palazzuolo. Bocca explains that the idea , supported by a €5 million plan until it's fully operational and a working group that "is committed to promoting a process of community involvement," starts with an "initial screening" of artisans carried out by Tuscan cooperatives, but also involves residents and, obviously, the owners of the currently vacant properties , forty-three in total, which the Foundation has committed, by agreement with the owners, to renovate and make available to them free of charge for three years. Since the project was announced last December, 222 expressions of interest have been received, and approximately eighty artisans have participated in preliminary interviews.

Most of them, nearly seventy-five, come from the visual arts and artistic crafts sectors—namely, painting, drawing, sculpture, graphics, engraving, and prototyping—while another 34 are part of the so-called traditional crafts sector: tailoring, bags, clothing, and violin making. Nineteen proposals for workshops, galleries, and spaces dedicated to artistic activities have also been received. So far, Bocca continues, two requests have been approved: the first from a gift shop, and the second from a furniture and design studio. Furthermore, two permanent funds have already been activated: the Spazio Recreos, a sort of "control room" that includes the family hub, and the Spazio Periodico, a residence for artists and designers modeled after the French Academy. Like the venerable institution founded four centuries ago by Minister Colbert, it will offer a calendar of activities to "bring Via Palazzuolo to life even in the evening." That the city that has symbolized Italian manufacturing excellence for over five hundred years must resort to a public, but in reality private, initiative to rebuild itself and safeguard its soul speaks volumes about the effects of a lack of planning, of laissez-ailleur; and of a short-sighted view of Italy's value primarily as a tourist destination, of the obligation to say no, not to sell off, not to standardize—which doesn't mean crystallizing what already exists, but rather protecting its uniqueness. Therefore, when Bocca adds that "some major luxury brands are considering involvement," even in the form of protection for some artisans who are already producers, I ask him whether it's really worthwhile to define from the outset a model that, kept away from brands, could restore people's faith in the value of fashion and Italian excellence. It starts in 2026: other cities, suffering the same effects of overtourism and the massification of taste, have already come forward with the CRF Foundation to study the model and replicate it.

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