“Bello e Ben Fatto”—The Protection of Fashion “Made in Italy”

Abstract

The essay focuses on fashion and will cover distinct areas. It will first address the birth of “made in Italy” in the field of fashion from an historical point of view. It will then analyze the measures that the Italian government has launched in recent years to protect “traditional Italian brands”, and the various initiatives of certification and labeling in order to protect “made in Italy” fashion products. It will then focus on the enormous problems related to counterfeiting and, finally, on the new challenges such as the use of Blockchain as a strategy for the protection of “made in Italy” products, and how sustainability is, or should become, a part of the “made in Italy” paradigm. I. “Made in Italy”: A Brand With a Long Story ............................... 545 II. The Codification of “Good Taste” ............................................... 547 III. A New Beginning ....................................................................... 550 IV. The Birth of Fashion “Made in Italy” in the Post-War Times ....... 553 V. The Affirmation of “Made in Italy Fashion”: An Intricate Play of Forces ......................................................................................... 555 VI. Defining “Made in Italy” From a Legislative Point of View: A Complex Task ............................................................................. 556 VII. Counterfeiting and the Protection of Consumers .......................... 561 VIII. The Protection of the Historical Marks ........................................ 564 IX. Behind the Curtain of “Made in Italy” Today .............................. 565 X. The New Challenges ................................................................... 567 XI. Conclusions ................................................................................ 569 I. “MADE IN ITALY”: A BRAND WITH A LONG STORY Fashion has always been an important part of Italy’s cultural life, and more than in any other country, the image of Italy is associated with fashion. * Barbara Pozzo, Professor of Law, Ordinario di Diritto Privato Comparato, Direttore del Dipartimento di Diritto Economia e Culture (DIDEC), Coordinatore del Dottorato in Diritto e Scienze Umane, UNESCO Chair on Gender Equality, Università degli Studi dell'Insubria 1 Simona Segre Reinach, Made in Italy in Motion, 2 ZONEMODA J. 13, 13 (2011). 6 POZZO (DO NOT DELETE) 2/23/2021 3:49 PM 546 FIU Law Review [Vol. 14:545 Since the eleventh century, the development of the Communes in Italy brought about social and political changes that had their repercussions also in the field of fashion, where merchants and artisans played an important role. Slowly, the desire to look well-dressed abandoned the manors and reached a wider range of people. Artisans began to produce objects that, showed in fairs and markets, began to become the object of desire. Fashion can be talked about as early as the thirteenth century, as desire and display of objects conceived and produced to induce the purchase and to show taste, social privilege, and wealth of those who owned and wore them. During the thirteenth century, new classes, bearers of a new mentality, used fashion to try to undermine a society where roles were predefined on the ground of belonging to a determined social class. As a reaction to this development, secular authorities tried to maintain the status quo issuing sumptuary laws aimed at keeping the main population dressed according to their “station.” The development of a market of luxury goods went hand in hand with the emergence of new wealthy people, eager to show their abundance of means with beautiful dresses and accessories. This evolution was accompanied by the Italian manufacture that derived its strength from a solid artisan tradition, which dates back to the Middle Ages. The backbone of the medieval manufacture was the textile sector. Cotton was one of the first production activities to reach a significant level of importance in the twelfth century. These were mixed fabrics, which combined cotton, linen, or wool. The best known were the fustagni (moleskin), low-cost items intended for a medium-low clientele, whose production had already started in the twelfth century and was present in many urban centers of Northern Italy. The raw material was imported from Southern Italy, but above all from the Middle East, which, together with the mainland European countries, were also important outlet markets for the finished product. In the wool sector, the production and trade of wool items during the twelfth century developed rapidly, putting Italy in touch with the merchants of England and the Flanders. The cloths were imported raw from the northern countries. Then, guilds, mainly from Tuscany, had specialized in dyeing and finishing fabrics and then exporting them to the Mediterranean basin. 2 See generally Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli, Reconciling the Privilege of a Few with the Common Good: Sumptuary Laws in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, 39 J. MEDIEVAL & EARLY MOD. STUD. 597 (2009). 3 CARLO MARCO BELFANTI, STORIA CULTURALE DEL MADE IN ITALY 52 (2019).