Fashion Theory

The Journal of Dress, Body and Culture

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China and Italy: Fast Fashion versus Prêt à Porter.

Towards a New Culture of Fashion

Reinach Simona Segre

To cite this article: Reinach Simona Segre (2005) China and Italy: Fast Fashion versus
Prêt�à�Porter. Towards a New Culture of Fashion, Fashion Theory, 9:1, 43-56, DOI:
10.2752/136270405778051527

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 China and Italy: Fast Fashion versus Prêt à Porter. Towards a New Culture of Fashion 43

Fashion Theory, Volume 9, Issue 1, pp. 43–56

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China and Italy:

Simona Segre
Reinach
Simona Segre Reinach, Cultural
Anthropologist and Fashion
Consultant, teaches Fashion
Studies at IULM University, Milan.
She has published many articles
and two books: Mode in Italy. Una
lettura antropologica (Guerini,
1999) and Moda: Un’introduzione
(Laterza, forthcoming 2005). She is
currently undertaking research on
Sino-Italian joint-venture
companies. simona.segre@
fastwebnet.it
Fast Fashion
versus Prêt à
Porter. Towards a
New Culture of
Fashion
Same Bed, Different Dreams
The following observations derive from field work that I undertook in
September 2002 in and around the cities of Shanghai, Jiaxing, and Hangh-
zou, in the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang in south-eastern China.
During this time period, I interviewed proprietors of Chinese–Italian
companies in the textile and clothing industries, representatives from the
Chamber of Commerce and the Italian Consulate, and Chinese officials
and managers from government or semi-private special development
areas—Development Zones.
44 Simona Segre Reinach

This was preliminary research carried out in collaboration with Pro-

fessor Sylvia Yanagisako of the Department of Cultural and Social
Anthropology at Stanford University, and Professor Lisa Rofel of the
Department of Anthropology, University of California at Santa Cruz. The
aim of this research project was to pinpoint a number of companies
cooperating in joint ventures or entirely financed by foreign capital
(Wholly foreign-owned enterprise, WFOE), in order to carry out a study
of the two textile cultures, namely Chinese and Italian, which have been
interacting with each other on the international market for a long time
now.
This research has allowed me to discuss issues about the global culture
of fashion that I refer to in this article. This geographical area of China
was chosen as it is an extremely interesting one for carrying out textile
research, in as much as it is a vast territory, which not only produces the
largest amount of silk (20% of Chinese silk production comes from
Jiaxing) but, above all, it is where one can find businesses of all different
types: from purely commercial small businesses to huge production
concerns, from single peasant families, which the Chinese government has
turned over to the exclusive production of silk, to the embroiderers tucked
away in the remote countryside, hours away by car and who are the
fortune of Italian entrepreneurs, who in the last thirty years have set up
their production network in this area.
The majority of these Chinese producers interact with the Italian
fashion system in many different ways. For many years now, although
some only recently, Italian small traders and important entrepreneurs have
been covering the vast Chinese territory, particularly these regions, estab-
lishing contacts and contracts, operating as suppliers, business agents, and
à façon operators.
In general, northern Italian companies come to China to have goods
produced for themselves or for others, while single entrepreneurs from
southern Italy are usually only involved in buying specific goods for export
to Italy.
In the realm of textiles, the relationship between the Italians and the
Chinese is characterized by much ambivalence and some controversy,
especially at the moment, as a complicated puzzle of production and
consumption principles is replacing the traditional relationship between
the country that is the “exploiter” and that which is “exploited,” charac-
teristic of a typical capitalist system.
“Same bed, different dreams” is an ancient Chinese saying that was
quoted during an interview by an Italian lawyer acting as consultant to
enterprises operating in China, to illustrate the relationship and, above
all, the spirit that inspires the alliance between the Chinese and Italians
in the matter of joint ventures. We were sipping our Italian cappuccinos
in the luxurious lobby of the Kerry Center in Nanjin Road, the seat of
his Shanghai legal office, and just across from the magnificent brand-new
mall, where the most prestigious Italian brand names can be found. At a
China and Italy: Fast Fashion versus Prêt à Porter. Towards a New Culture of Fashion 45

quick glance, one notices huge open spaces, which are apparently empty.
But the wheels of the fashion machine turn incessantly and the shop
windows display clothes like the banners of anticipatory socialization.
As soon as the nouveau riche of Shanghai can afford it, and it is mostly
the men who are the target consumers of Italian luxury goods, they will
turn to what are now global symbols of wealth and Western lifestyle.
What does not work in the relationship between the Italians and the
Chinese? “ Italian entrepreneurs are individualists, they love to make spur-
of-the-moment decisions, perhaps conveyed by a simple fax, they are used
to getting their own way immediately,” the young Italian lawyer explains.
“The Chinese, on the other hand, are fond of never-ending meetings, very
formal discussions around the conference table, ceremonial behaviour,
delays and bureaucracy typical of a system which is culturally the opposite
of the fast-track mentality of the Italian family enterprise, a characteristic
of the fashion sector.” This is the reason why joint ventures, which
blossomed in the 1980s, are gradually being replaced by WFOEs, that
is, financed wholly by foreign capital, now backed both by Italian lawyers
and consultants and by the Chinese government, as they are less compli-
cated and more efficient.
But what is the Chinese dream, and what is that of the Italians? Are
they really so different from each other? J. Entwistle in her book The
Fashioned Body defines the textile industry as “an imperfect industry”
(2000: 212–14). She is specifically referring to the incomplete industriali-
sation of the whole textile sector. According to the author, among the
consequences of this incomplete process is the business of subcontracting,
which has distinguished the textile industry in the past and continues to
characterize it in the age of globalization, through the exploitation of
Third World labour for the benefit of the leading Western brands.

Instead of large-scale machinery gradually replacing individual

workers, the individual worker at an individual machine remains
the staple of clothing production, even as the relationship was made
increasingly more automatic (Entwistle 2000: 213).

Nevertheless, one might ask what is going on if one of the exploited

countries, such as China, can boast an important tradition in textiles on
the one hand, and a specific cultural attitude towards the concept of
“copying” and “imitation” on the other.
As far as fashion goes, the relationship between Italy and China is in
continual evolution and from many directions. It is typical, for example,
that Chinese silk policy is still in the hands of the state and is managed
by the huge institutions of the Silk Corporation and Silk Parks, which
are situated in the so-called Special Development Zones, even if they
appear in a new form and are in some ways semi-private.
There are also huge changes on the product marketing front, for
example, the new policy of branding by Chinese companies, which up to
46 Simona Segre Reinach

now, have only produced Italian brands but now intend to start work on
their own brands, both for the domestic market and for the international
one.
Researching these companies has prompted me to think about the topics
of production and consumption and to question the role of fashion in the
era of the decline of lifestyles and the emergence of new patterns of taste.
The analysis of the facts inevitably leads one to discuss several ambigui-
ties and characteristics of the concept of fashion itself, such as the idea
of exclusivity, glamour, originality, luxury on the one hand, copies,
imitation, mass production on the other.
More generally this article aims to discuss the transformation—which
we are witnessing—of the cultural system of Western prêt à porter into a
system with different characteristics, which are global and geared towards
rapidity, in which China can and does play a prominent role.

A Chinese Flavor on your T-shirt

In the past few months, particularly between January and June 2003, a
trend has emerged in the communications of Italian fashion, fashion
shows, and in the products which unite diverse brands: a kind of Chinese
inspiration and reference, present not only in the top of the range but also
in the mainstream fashion of many young and casual brands. A good exam-
ple would be the designer Cavalli in the luxury sector and the Fornarina
brand with its slogan “Shanghai Modern” in the young fashion sector.
It is not just a matter of “orientalism” with its comings and goings
which characterizes the entire history of modern fashion (Steele and Major
1999) and, in particular, the 1990s, when Asian fashion was particularly
prominent: “Throughout the decade, stylistic inspirations and cultural
practices from Asia were so prevalent that they have become mainstream,
even as they retained an exotic flair” (Niessen et al. 2003: 1), or at least
it is not only about this.
To refer to the Shanghai lifestyle implies evoking the spirit of the new
and distinctive type of capitalism that characterizes communist China
today, the way of life of the Chinese new generation, who appear to
Westerners naive and sophisticated at the same time, superficial and
disillusioned, just as they are described in the morbid stories of the two
most famous female writers, one-time friends and now rivals, Mian Mian
and Zhou Weihui.
When the novel Shanghai Baby by Zhou Weihui (1999) was published,
Mian Mian sued her friend, accusing her of having entirely copied her
book La la la (published in China in 1997).
Zhou Weihui’s defense was straightforward and emphatic. She simply
said that she had not copied “every single word” of La la la. For months
the dispute dominated the leading Chinese websites Sohu and Netease on
which the supporters of the two ex-friends did battle with no holds barred.
China and Italy: Fast Fashion versus Prêt à Porter. Towards a New Culture of Fashion 47

I like to think of the media battle between the two young writers, Mian
Mian and Zhou Weihui, as a metaphor for the substantial change that is
characterizing fashion in the age of globalization, a change that is at least
as significant as the one that occurred after the second World War, and
led to a change in supremacy from couture to prêt à porter.
It is a well-known fact that haute couture stood for middle-class
fashion, typical of a society divided into hierarchical and vertical social
classes, whereas prêt à porter has become the symbol of fashion dedicated
to a society in which the classes have been replaced by styles and taste, as
Bourdieu intended (1983). This transition from the private middle-class
taste of which Bourdieu unveiled the mask of “innate good taste,” to the
various tastes expressed by lifestyles, has been interpreted and diffused
at large by the made in Italy system. Italian designers above all have been
capable in both a concrete and symbolic manner of interpreting Western
society’s aesthetic demands and desire for luxury.
Beyond the concept of class, beyond those of lifestyles and luxury, a
new fashion culture is now emerging in this age, which we might call
“postmodern,” despite the ambiguity of the term. It is the culture of
instant or fast fashion, born of the globalization of trends, of a global
concept of production and domestic marketing. Quick and easy brands
capable of answering the needs of a new consumer who is fickle and
changeable, and quite different from those desires prompted by life-styles
and the democratization of luxury.
Fast fashion is a generic term that covers various types of products and
brands: from simple, cheap items of clothing sold on street market-stalls,
to proper brands such as Laltramoda (which also traces its beginnings
back to the market-stall) and, above all, brands like Zara and Mango—
both Spanish and both partially produced in China—to H&M, the
legendary Scandinavian company, which is the fastest of them all. New
products are churned out every day. H&M has now opened a branch in
Milan, on the corso Vittorio Emanuele, in the ex-premises of Fiorucci,
the fashion temple for young people in the 1970s.
In modern fashion, which was born symbolically with Worth in the
mid-1800s, three systems, thus three consumption and three production
models have followed each other over the course of time. Each belongs
to a different age, but all three still coexist in different “doses” and layers
that influence the imaginary by which fashion is communicated and
experienced.
The first model, that of couture, hinges on the concept of luxury, seen
as a distinction of class. The second model, prêt à porter, focuses on the
concept of modernity of “life-style.” The third model, fast fashion, is
centered on versatility, considered as the immediate gratification of new
“temporary” identities.
So, in couture, prêt à porter, and in fast fashion lines there are not only
different clothes at different prices, sold in different locations, but also
imaginaries and cultures within which both clothing and communicative
48 Simona Segre Reinach

practices are outlined. The relationship between couture and prêt à porter
has been analyzed at great length. Little, however, has been written, due
to them being so recent, on the differences between the prêt à porter and
the fast fashion systems. Fast fashion has been analyzed almost exclusively
from an economic and commercial point of view: low-cost fashion cloth-
ing, often inspired by, if not copied from, prêt à porter, and retailed at
great speed. The cultural aspect of this production model is still to be
explored. Although fast fashion has been around for years, it is only
recently that this model—extremely diversified within itself—has become
a highly visible phenomenon and a social model. Previously a consequence
of the main prêt à porter model and pulled along by it, it has now taken
on a dominant profile.
What do the different fast fashion brands have in common? They do
not directly invest in design—but are rather inspired by the prêt à porter
fashion shows, which they simplify—they invest instead in production
and distribution schedules, and rarely in advertising. They are all very
successful, very fashion oriented, and base themselves on the tenet that it
is all right to copy, as long as it is done quickly and well, and maybe not
entirely copied, as the author Weihui declares.
In fact, fast fashion copies the most attractive and promising trends
spotted at fashion shows—which are now available in real time on the
Internet, thanks to the technology of digital photography—and trans-
forms them into products that can be put on the market immediately,
freeing shopkeepers and consumers from the seasonal collection trap. In
other words, fast fashion serves up trends à la carte.
The concepts of copying, speed, and trends are therefore the fulcrum
of contemporary fashion, and, of course, not only in China. But copying
is a subject that China has mastered in an extremely subtle and competent
manner, being the Asian country that produces the majority of copies, fake
brands, and imitation goods on the whole, and in the textile sector in
particular. (Country number two is, believe it or not, Italy. It is a curious
fact that the phenomenon of fakes in Italy burst onto the scene when the
Italian “copiers” were starting to be copied by the Chinese.) Speed is
another element in which China is an expert. Rem Koolhaas, the author
and architect of, among other things, the Prada shop in Soho New York,
talks about the speed of the Chinese as a new standard of measurement—
this seems quite consistent with the most recent developments in fashion
(Koolhaas 2002). And if it manages to master the development of trends,
the game will be over. The organizers of the Shanghai Fashion Festival
which stages events twice a year, are quite unequivocal in their aims: to
make Shanghai the sixth most important center of world fashion, after
Paris, Milan, New York, London, and Tokyo, before 2010.
That which Weihui implicitly stated when defending herself against the
accusations is totally consistent with the Chinese idea of copying—
copying only a part is not really copying—and besides, a good copy is
worth at least as much as the original.
China and Italy: Fast Fashion versus Prêt à Porter. Towards a New Culture of Fashion 49

For example, in China there are at least twenty-six fake Valentino

brands: Claudio Valentino, Bruno Valentino, Giuseppe Valentino . . . and
so on. In Hanghzou there is a company that makes fake Valentino pro-
ducts that are sold in original Valentino boxes, which come from a
company in Dalmine, near Bergamo. Of the 4,200 official Chinese shops
selling Chanel cosmetics it is estimated that at least one-third are fraudu-
lent. Despite specific laws and regulations being enforced to counter the
fake brand and imitation goods market in Europe, the United States, and
China too, whose government has publicly committed itself to dealing
with the fakers and imitators (especially now the country has joined the
World Trade Organization (WTO)), the subject of Intellectual Property
Rights (IPR) is at the top of the agenda, especially in the hardest hit sector,
fashion.
But it is a truly arduous battle and above all, “are we sure everybody
really wants it?”—as an official from the Italian Institute for Foreign Trade
(ICE) in Shanghai confided to me in an interview, intimating what is
already an established fact, that these markets are often a release valve
in times of recession. It is not uncommon for the same Chinese companies
that produce the real brands to turn out fakes too.
Furthermore, aside from the legal and economic issues, we should ask
ourselves what a fake brand is, and what the difference is between the
imitation of a style, for example, and the making of a fake “made in?”.
One of the “secrets” discovered during the research is this: several of the
most prestigious “made in Italy” brands are in reality, entirely manu-
factured in China.
In the battle against the imitation products and fake brands market
originating in Asia and principally in China, Italy, but more generally
Western fashion, does not realize what is really happening in fashion
culture, what the implication is of this passage from a system that hinged
upon prêt à porter to a system now starting to hinge upon fast fashion,
based on totally different production presuppositions and rhythms and
new consumption trends.
Recent reference to China in fashion communications and in the pro-
ducts to be found in Italian and European shop windows, I think, can
also be interpreted, therefore, as a perhaps still unconscious display—we
know that images often herald realities that are still to be defined—of this
evolution of the fashion and social system. Production and consumption
are in fact two inseparable aspects of contemporary society and the
production models are also, above all, cultural models. From the point
of view of fashion studies, production, distribution, and consumption are
closely related and form a system that is not only economic, but also
cultural. How we dress is first of all a method of communication and
expression of our own identity, which influences and is influenced by how
the clothes are produced, sold, and how they look, in a relationship of
reciprocal influence. Analyzing the fashion system and the interweaving
of these relationships helps to bring out its cultural value.
50 Simona Segre Reinach

Figure 1
A silk factory. Jiaxing Sino-
Italian joint venture. Photo: the
author

Four Models of Fashion Relationships

When we try to summarize the elements that define the relationship

between Italy and China in matters of fashion, things do not seem to be
terribly complicated.
China is still mainly a production base for Italy. The more traditional
side of the Italian textile industry would prefer things to stay that way,
with China as a huge resource of low-cost skilled workers and artisans.
China, on the other hand, intends to free itself from a situation where
it is only a producer, by developing quality, adding more profitable phases,
and moving towards verticalization, until it is able to launch proper
brands at an international level, using its capacity for speed to full advant-
age. An example of this is the British Creative Fashion Network (CFLN)
in Shanghai, a recently opened UK fashion consultancy, which operates
at different levels and has various functions: a licensing service for Euro-
pean brands, products, and concept shops (Marks & Spencer and Ben-
etton, for example). It is now helping the Chinese who wish to enter and
export to new European markets. Styling Bureau, CFLN’s most recent
office, opened in Milan, offers assistance to those Chinese who wish to
develop fashion brands capable of competing on the international market.
So, even if China appears to be chasing international and, in particular,
Italian prêt à porter, in reality the situation is somewhat more complex.
The whole of China can be considered as an enormous textile laboratory
in which new concepts of fashion take shape and stand out more visibly,
a vast territory in which various types of producers and textile workers
have been operating for many decades, and with China’s entrance into
the WTO, it has all become more visible and fast changing.
 China and Italy: Fast Fashion versus Prêt à Porter. Towards a New Culture of Fashion 51

Figure 2
A silk factory. Jaixing State
owned Chinese. Photo: the
author

Figure 3
Shanghai. Elegant.Prosper
reception. Photo: the author

Even if Italy remains the model China follows, and regards as the
quintessence of quality and communications, in many ways it is really their
vision of fashion that is at the vanguard.
In order to understand this complex state of affairs, we can try to
classify the relationship between Italy and China as far as textiles and
fashion are concerned, according to the amount of influence and exchange
occuring between the two sides.
52 Simona Segre Reinach

Figure 4
Raw silk. Photo: the author

There is a level, which I would call “traditional,” where the exchange

between the two sides is low and the relationship is characteristic of that
between a poor country and a rich one. China produces raw materials
under commission and sells them to Italy, which transforms them into a
product with a high added value. A prototype of this relationship is the
silk industry. A complex relationship binds the Chinese silk industry to
that of Como, Italy, which abandoned silkworm culture many years ago,
typical of poor agricultural economies, in favour of other silk-processing
phases, of which the most delicate is perhaps dyeing—a field in which the
Italians are still unsurpassed, notwithstanding Chinese efforts.
However, as we have already pointed out, this too is rapidly changing.
For years Como has been world leader for high-quality silk. Now the
Chinese industries are trying to improve the quality of their silk produc-
tion both in regard to adding one of the most delicate phases in processing,
dyeing, and in attempting to go the fashion route—their model for this
is an Italian company, namely, Walter Mieli of Jiaxing.
At a second level, which I would call “dangerous games,” lies the sale
of Italian textile machinery in China. The same companies that sell textile
machines to the companies in Como, also sell to the Chinese. Thus, the
Chinese go from being competitors to clients. In fact, one-fifth of exported
Italian textile machines go to China. China has now become a reference
point as the leading foreign market for Italian companies producing textile
machinery. In 2002 exports to Beijing more than doubled, moving from
199 to 414 million euros (+108%) and almost the whole of the increase
in Italian production is due to the exploits of the Chinese.
Often the Chinese combine the importation of machinery with the
“importation” of retired Italian artisans, whom they recruit in Italy and
China and Italy: Fast Fashion versus Prêt à Porter. Towards a New Culture of Fashion 53

employ for a few years, in order to absorb their “love of the product,”
namely all those little secrets of Italian productivity traditions that a
machine alone could never reveal.
At a third level, we can place the production of finished garments. We
could call this the Melting Pot. There is a little bit of everything here, there
is a lot of influence and contamination. Italy commissions clothing of all
kinds in China, which it then sells both in Italy and at an international
level. Thus, there is a very wide spectrum: from extremely organized joint
ventures or WFOEs to individual entrepreneurs who work as mediators.
The Chinese learn how to make a product from the Italians, but they also
learn how to build a brand and a brand image. Chinese companies are
also beginning parallel production, as in the case of a Chinese company
whose core business is producing women’s garments for a leading Italian
brand and that has now started up its own very similar production,
branded Elegant.Prosper—now in joint venture with Italian textile group
Miroglio—that currently boasts forty-five stores in China and hopes to
start exporting at an international level. Then there is the case of the
Chinese sports brand Li-Ning aiming to challenge Nike, employing in its
team the Italian designer Max Zago, who counts among his clients Nike,
Fila, Diadora, and Champion.
There is, finally, a fourth level, similar to the first in the low level of
exchange between the sides and the elevated rituality expressed in their
relationship, but of a different type and, unlike the first, in continual
growth. We could call this level Parade. This represents the sales of leading
Italian brands in China.
At the celebration events organized for Italian fashion and its lifestyle
models, which are supported by organizations such as ICE and most
modern media, one can witness in the main Chinese cities such as Shanghai,
Beijing, and Shenzhen, the so-called “experimental town,” new malls
displaying Italian luxury products destined for the Chinese nouveau riche.
One significant example is Zegna: When we got here more than ten years
ago, we were the only ones,” says Paolo Zegna. “Today, in this country
we have 35 sales points (24 wholly-owned and six franchised out), for a
turnover which was around 25 million dollars in 2001, and took the
Zegna company to top brand in Chinese men’s fashion” (Verga 2003).
Other famous brands include Benetton, Ferragamo, Max Mara, Furla,
Prada, Armani, Bruno Magli, Gucci, and Versace.
But perhaps the most interesting sector, for the purpose of our debate
on the changes in fashion culture, is the low-end sector, the mass market,
to be found in the third model. The Fashion China Fair in Shanghai is
the place to observe everything in ferment in fast fashion today. This is a
fashion textile fair that is somewhat overlooked by ICE and also by the
leading names in prêt à porter. Here, one can witness the many under-
ground movements and new configurations that global fashion produces.
The Italian companies present at the fair are all small and largely un-
known. They are, however, flanked by designers from China, Hong Kong,
54 Simona Segre Reinach

and Asia. This is the fast fashion and imitation fair. When I visited the
September 2002 edition I was struck by the fact that only one of the Italian
companies present was looking for a Chinese producer, as was usual
practice. Instead, they all wanted to export their low-cost products and
viewed China as an interesting new outlet for market-stall fast fashion.
Right next to them were Chinese producers of fake Italian brands with
ambiguous names, such as Forence Italy—Chinese brands registered in
Italy, courtesy of the Chinese people who live there, and produced and
sold in China as if “made in Italy.”

Conclusions

Prêt à porter is above all a sphere of cultural production. The models of

production are cultural and consumption models: “As a privileged site
of production, fashion—particularly “high fashion” or haute couture—
is a powerful sphere of cultural production” (Niessen et al. 2003: 19).
Presented until now as a “gated commodity” to protect it from a reality
and paradox that descended from it: prêt à porter is a mass-produced
product and can now be easily copied by fast fashion, imitated by fake
brands, endangered by the counterfeiting of goods and brands, and
subjected to all kinds of transformations that compromise its glamour and
embodiment of luxury goods.
This is the reason why designers today are moving towards personaliza-
tion and fashion is offering unknown “small brands” as an antidote to
the standardization and globalized omnipresence that retail policies have
stamped on high fashion.
The huge variety of fashion styles present in China, the contradictory
reality emerging from the breakdown of a simple low-cost model, yet
involving skilled production, reveals the sweeping changes and substantial
contradictions that globalization stamps upon fashion.
According to Lise Skov (2003: 240):

This should prompt some self critical reflections in anyone who still
believes in privileged links between modernity and the West. The
modernist dialectics of disembodying and re-embodying can be
staged in infinite ways in fashion, and while some ways are quite
conventional, others have the potential to question received notions
of cultural fixity.

Furthermore:

We have moved beyond a naive assumption that fashion designers

and other cultural producers are unproblematic representatives of
their culture. Their work needs to be situated in the context of the
global fashion system that is highly segmented at the same time as
China and Italy: Fast Fashion versus Prêt à Porter. Towards a New Culture of Fashion 55

its global manufacturing networks provides intimate links between

East Asia and the West. Global industrial structures have to be
included as an integral part of cultural analysis.

Imitation is the heart of fast fashion that is gradually winning over

consumers of all ages and buying power throughout Europe. It is in fact
production and the new distribution schedule of fast fashion that best
responds to the social transformation, with its practices of extemporary
and unpredictable consumption that, in turn, influence the pattern of
production and distribution of the fashion system.
China, by definition, is fast fashion, just as Italy is prêt à porter par
excellence. In Italy this is a hot issue. There are those who insist, like the
entrepreneur Carlo Guglielmi, member of the association of brand indus-
tries, Centro Marca, and President of Indicam, the institute that fights
against counterfeiting, that “We are now one step away from commercial
war with China (“China, Putting the Brakes on Our Exports”, La Repub-
blica October 6 2003). Even the former Italian Minister of Finance
Tremonti is convinced that it is a matter of a price war and a problem of
protecting Italian products, or rather of protecting IPR. “We have article
181 and they (the Chinese) have slaves” (“China, Putting the Brakes on
Our Exports” La Repubblica October 6 2003).
But there are also different views. I quote from an article by another entre-
preneur, Carlo De Benedetti, once again from the Italian daily newspaper
La Repubblica (“Who’s Afraid of the Chinese Giant?” October 3 2003):

The Chinese phenomenon is feared by many. But in the debates held

over the last few weeks, which focused upon the matter of duties and
monetary aspects, one notices a minimalist and trivialising approach,
almost as if one is unable or does not wish to understand the magni-
tude of the phenomenon we are witnessing. On the contrary, I
believe we are coming to a new crossroads in the history of civilisa-
tion—quite similar to that described by Braudel—with the world’s
axis once again on the move, this time passing from the Atlantic
to the Pacific, thus Europe is facing the danger of the decline of an
era. After two centuries of absolute planetary domination, Euro-
pean civilisation seems to be helplessly witnessing its marginalisa-
tion and just as it happened between Athens and Rome over two
thousand years ago, the finest fruits of its culture may just ripen
elsewhere.

Note

1. Article 18 of the Italian labor statute, Italian Law 300/1970 “The re-
integration of workers” obliges companies with over fifteen employees
56 Simona Segre Reinach

to reemploy employees who have been made redundant “without a

justified cause.”

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